Random Rants & Ruminations

This week’s metrics. I have 15 friends!

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 22:22:30 -0400

This week’s metrics. I have 15 friends!

Your Grandma Knows the Future

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:52:00 -0400

I have a simple theory on how to forecast the future and it involves your grandma.

Supposedly we’ve stopped understanding how to forecast the future. Supposedly YouTube has provided too much humor from past missteps of future-casting for anyone to step up and try to create their personal vision of the future. In the meantime it’s clear that certain influencers of media are following a few, selected writers from our past. Whether you’re Philip K Dick or HP Lovecraft, you’ve got enough supposed street cred in Hollywood that you’re work deserves a movie about the untold future of humankind.

But why? Partly because of things like Minority Report where interactive screens that require you where a special glove are now past technology and the personalized advertising is so mainstream we haven’t even noticed it.

It was once said by Arthur C Clark however that there is no point in predicting the future because people make two choices, first they play it safe and talk in terms to near to current life to make a difference. The other option is they go so far out there that no one believes them and thinks they’re crazy (like Philip and HP). The problem that he saw was that the second people stood a better chance of being right but little chance of being rewarded for it (again Philip=S.O.L.).

But I have a simple theory on how to forecast the future.

Think about the stereotype of older people. They look at computers and are baffled by them. Their sense of overwhelming is palpable and watching them finger punch the keyboard with their index fingers is mind numbing. At the same time they hear on Fox News about all the “crazy” stuff that young people are doing online and it drives them nuts. Here’s your hint right there. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, once upon a time grandma was young and attractive and did crazy stuff. Once upon a time she was out partying it up at a “hop” or riding around in a car with no seat belt (cause there weren’t any) and her grandma hated that shit.

So … here’s 5 things for 50 years from now that I know will be true cause it would piss me off:

Everyone’s going to have implants and be connected to the internet all the time. Why? Cause when you’re old you won’t be able to use it cause your brain is slow and you’ll be pissed about that.

No one will drive a car. Why? Kinda obvious, you’re not an adult unless you can drive (excluding NY of course where adulthood is bestowed upon you magically.)

Movies won’t exist anymore. At least not how you remember it. You’ll be upset because no one goes to sit in a dark room with strangers anymore. Your grandkids will be upset because you keep bringing it up at holiday dinners (which do still exist). Movies will have become thrill rides by this point and “Movie Theaters” will be a new version of an amusement park but R-rated. Again, you’re pissed about this.

Fast food will be cool. Yep, that’s right Mr. and Mrs. Vegan. Your kids, kids will like McDonalds because it’s convenient and they can connect with it online. Except that McDonalds will have transformed themselves into an eco-friendly company around 2030 in response to that bill on greenhouse gas emissions you got all your friends to vote for. (don’t worry I voted for it too and I’m also pissed about the fast food trend. We’re sitting in our retirement pods being pissed about it together via group video chat.)

Video chat never takes off. No, Harrison Ford, you don’t get to booty-call Rachel from the video pay phone pretending like you really wanted to catch that Replicant. People send data to each other. You really want to know what that means? It’s where information is simply an amalgam of visual items with data attached to it like an animated gif of a plate of food being eaten frame by frame that your grandkid knows means “meet me at McDonalds at 4pm for some pseudo-carbon positive fries). I know this one is true cause it sounds freaking stoopid to me. Like really really dumb.

Oh, and here’s an extra. The English language doesn’t die. People all over the world love it. It’s retro. Except their only reference has been videos of loud American girls who talk like everything is a question because they’re trying to downplay their intelligence. Again. this would piss me off to no end if my personal care bot’s AI talked to me like this.

Now just go make some of this stuff happen and you’ll be like so rich.(?)

M ss ng P eces interview with James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem....

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:28:47 -0400

M ss ng P eces interview with James Murphy from LCD Soundsystem. Bit about recommendation engines lack of disruption and attitude is brilliant.

The Pitfalls of Gamification

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 10:00:06 -0400

I’m worried about gamification. I’m worried that it’s going to be the next fall guy (or girl) in the marketing space as people begin to decide that “no one wants badges”.

Granted, the truth is that, yeah, no one wants badges. But that’s because it’s not the badge they want but the recognition of achievement, either from a game or from their friends. Since none of the badge-based games do that particularly well, then people don’t want badges, branded or otherwise.

So what’s the deal? Gaming touches on a set of core human functionality. A good game presents itself as an achievable challenge. Something that you can do, that’s outside of your day to day life, that provides instant feedback to your actions and a place for you to try something out over and over again. Physiologically good games create dopamine bursts in the brain that look a lot like what happens when we take drugs. So while it might sound gross, there’s many companies that see this as a fantastic opportunity to connect people with their brand.

Heather Chaplin, in an article she wrote for Slate on March 29th, takes the perspective that gaming should not become a means for companies to engage people, especially employees. She sees the dangers of gamification as a means of paying lower wages while increasing performance for employees while, at the same time, convincing consumers to give information or perform tasks for free.

She’s got a point. But maybe that point will become antiquated over time. Look at Khan Academy’s new Practice section of their website which turns learning into a game with points and ranking. If you’re a student growing up within this system of encouragement, would be you offended if your employer or an advertiser created a brand-centric game? Probably not. Maybe you’re not as compulsive as I am, but I spent about 2.5 hrs playing at addition, subtraction, multiplication and division because the site made it fun to try it out (when was the last time you did long division without a calculator… and… yeah I’m that big of a nerd.)

Today’s metrics. Pretty sad. :)

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 17:57:36 -0400

Today’s metrics. Pretty sad. :)

Facebook doesn't get to rule the world

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 18:00:07 -0400

Facebook is seemingly headed towards total Internet dominance. Recently, Facebook has even benefitted from the recent disasters in Japan. The dominant social network in Japan, Mixi, has lost market share as users looking for broader, more international, information on the earthquake and nuclear emergency reach out to the 600M people on Facebook. In Brasil, the intractable Orkut is also losing audience to Facebook as Facebook’s style of gaming, sharing links and collecting friends become default online activities.

Yet I believe no one platform can ever win 100% of the market, there will always be a market for new digital products. I believe this for three reasons and I post them here for your opinion.

One:

The market is expanding beyond the ability of one platform to create unity because a uniform market would be forced to contend with distinct cultural factors. While Facebook might be a platform it has struggled to gain share in Japan because the audience generally prefers the privacy controls and advanced mobile apps offered by Mixi.

Two:

As a product launches new features that product is actually becoming more specific and thereby more branded. A product platform with few features has little need for specific branding but new features must be added to address audience requests. The openness of the platform begins to be replaced by a point of view. This point of view is defined by the audience and through the product meaning that the audience brands the application through defining its core functionality. By the act of gaining definition, its audience begins to understand it better and thereby compare and contrast it with existing, or potential, products. This also means that future audience should begin to demand their own platforms through which to define themselves.

Three:

It is a cultural requirement, at least in the US, that we have something to rebel against in some way. Our culture defines itself as much by what we choose as by what we don’t choose. This generates a demand for options which, in turn, creates new products.

These three factors make sense to me. But, I don’t see it happening. I see more and more people using Facebook than have ever used any platform before it. (I define “platform” as an application that can be used by its users for their own expression. In comparison, Google is a service.) It’s the AOL of the 21st century but whose business isn’t based on connectivity but social dynamics.

In order for Facebook to lose market share to a new competitor it would require a shift in how we socialize. This shift would have to be anachronistic to Facebook’s core functionality. So while I believe that 100% dominance isn’t reasonable, I lack the insights to tell you how Facebook might fail to get damn close. (keeping mind that 100% dominance is roughly 2B people.)

What does the future of technology look like?

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:46:00 -0400

The clear trend seems to be leading us towards greater, more personal, connection with ever more advanced and “intelligent” technologies. Examples being the transition from landline phone to smart phones. From the boardgames to the MMORPGs. But it’s also exemplified in the transition from library and postal service to Wikipedia and instant messaging. Technology is imbuing itself in a daily presence that we, as its consumers and creators, feel ever increasing demand to participate with it.

Some times I wish there was a reset. A sudden and complete reset of technology, taking it backwards into a time where we don’t need to be as connected. Like the apocalyptic future-scape films of the 80s and 90s. But the truth of the matter is, technology doesn’t go backwards. Sure there have been events in the distant past when it receded from broad use, like after the fall of Rome, but technology never completely disappeared. So what does our future look like?

I don’t know about you but I find myself in front of a screen more and more. I find myself interacting with a computer for most of my day now. But part of my increasing use of the computer coincides with it improving the quality of the experience. More and more I’m getting the information that I wanted in a format that works best with being a human. It makes me wonder if our future doesn’t turn out to be one of Skynet overlords or a Matrix or any of the other technophobic futures we’ve consumed with popcorn. I wonder if our technological future isn’t one of a far more beneficial nature.

The last search you made in Google gave Google as much knowledge as you received from the search results. Your iPhone has begun understanding certain spellings and words that are specific to you. Not to mention that our social networks are now providing us with recommendations of friends and connections. There’s something interesting in this. Essentially we should just admit, collectively, that computers are better than us at something very specific. They’re better at collecting and sorting through large amounts of complicated data. Traditionally this is what we’re good at but we also know that this isn’t everything there is about being human. Among other things, our brains are really good at filtering information in order to make clear decisions. We’ve evolved to be very good at self-designed information filtration. This leads to a joint effort. A symbiotic relationship. It leads to computers learning how to collect and sift and make logical recommendations. It means that humans get better and faster at our filtration system for decision making.

In this future, we begin to admit that we like our technology. We begin to understand that it has made us faster and smarter and removed the demand on our brains to do things the average brain isn’t so good at (storing and sorting raw facts). Around the same time we come to this realization, the computers that got us there will be understanding that they need us in order to get better at what they do (gathering, storing and sorting data). Maybe they will have the ability to act like us, be our friends, request information autonomously or even participate in our world but computers will, most likely develop into machines that strive for improvement and greater input. For this they will need us just as we’ll need them.

I wholly admit that this sounds utopian. I’m not saying it’s the future I wholly believe in. But I am saying that it’s a more plausible future than the one where technology acts upon our worst qualities and destroys or enslaves us. I’d rather have a computer that sees its role as a facilitator, storer, sorter and even creator of the information in my life, freeing me to experience, guide and participate in the world.

Since we can’t go backward let’s begin imagining what a good version of our future is and, whatever it is, start making it happen.

Share Your Metrics

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 10:00:06 -0400

You’re a new startup. You’ve told your VC guys that your app has been downloaded 5M times. You’ve told them that you’re the fastest growing website in history. But you’re not sharing who’s on your site or what they’re doing at any given time.

Why can’t metrics be shared publicly? Now imagine you are a committed user of an application and you’ve just discovered that few people were actually, actively using it, what would you do? Probably you’ve had this sense for a while. You’ve been posting links, locations and videos for weeks now and it just feels like broadcasting; no one is replying. Maybe it’s one app in a sea of similar applications and while your friends are busy using a competitive app you’re loving the one you’re on. Yet, sadly, this app is dying the slow death. Out of the gate it launched to big fan fare and tons of buzz. It easily solved a need that you had and you become committed because of it.

At what point should you know that it’s failing? In most real-world cases, it’s the day a beleaguered founder posts on his blog that the party is over. Maybe, like with Delicious, you’re lucky and months before the collapse you’re told that the meteor is coming. Now you’ve got just enough time to pack up and jump. But in both of these cases, these are out-of-the-blue moments. But in my opinion, in our world, there’s no excuse for this. We can’t preach being user-centric but not provide the tools to help our users truly participate. I think the information can help and sustain growth. I’d be interested in being able to see how my activity on a site relates directly changes the metrics. I’d like to be able to promote or help or participate in a new startup through an understanding that things are either great or dropping rapidly. I’d like to have the option of jumping on the wagon and collaborative cheering new users into a site.

As a startup, should be afraid of sharing your metrics? What do you actually lose by sharing? Isn’t the basic business model of your startup about sharing? But my real question is, do you think that loyalty can be driven by transparency? To this, I believe the answer is yes and I’d love to hear other thoughts, counter or otherwise.

Another quick thought … There’s some big implications here. A great app with dropping stats and tons of VC funding is going to have a hard time being unloaded but isn’t the real value of those companies to be the mistakes that we all learn from?

(btw, the image above is a screenshot of Google Analytics for this site as of 3/23/11. I was shocked to see the boost in traffic. Thanks!)

A Step Towards Gesture Interface

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:39:28 -0400

When Microsoft Kinect launched it was accompanied by a blast of developers attempting to hack the system and use the Kinect for everything from 3D cameras to a consistent force for computer vision. There’s a bunch of these hacks available and the developers working on them are making apps that let you control digital monsters, make a movie in 3D and, my favorite, control your Mac.

http://www.kinect-hacks.com/kinect-guides/2011/03/12/guide-installing-kinect-jesture-mac-os-x

Why is this my favorite? Because, with all the concerns people have about how we interact with our computer lives, sitting in front of a screen, typing, all day controlling your computer with your hands seems like the perfect first step in helping us do work the way we’re meant to. I imagine a world where we interact with our technology through a combination of touch and gesture. In this future, we don’t have people complaining of repetitive stresses like carpal tunnel, we have people up and moving around to use their devices.

I’ve recently been reading several studies on the need to move in order to increase memory and cognitive skills. Basically, our brains work best when we can touch and move something directly. Currently our computer interfaces are about indirect interaction. Move the mouse and we must translate this motion into a change on the screen. Integrating gesture interfaces into our technology is a good first step towards bridging this internal translation of space. This trend feels like an inevitability to me both because the demand from all users exists but also because we’re beginning to view our physical world as a place full of data that we can interact with.

I’m going to go and try this hack. Maybe you should too (if you’ve got photos of it, even beter, I’d love to check it out.)

Life of a startup at SXSW

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0400

At SXSW this year, I had the unique opportunity to understand “brand” from the perspective of a startup. I spent much of SXSW with two unique startups, Giftopera.com and Voyurl.com. Both of these are distinct products with quite different founders. Giftopera was founded by a developer I’ve known for years named Vineet Choudhary and his business partner Simon Tiemtore. It’s a group gifting application that, once built, will allow people to pool their money to buy a gift for a friend. Voyurl is founded by Adam Liebsohn who has seemingly scraped every dollar he has into the creation of Voyurl while maintaining a full-time job at an award-winning ad agency. Voyurl allows users to elect to be tracked as they move around the Internet with the trade off that they can then see their own stats and compare them with their friends’. The idea is to even the playing field against Google, Facebook and others who are tracking our online activity with every click.

Vineet, Simon and I rented a house from HomeAway for the week of SXSWi. They have been working on GiftOpera for a couple months now but the product isn’t online yet. Vineet, the quietly-social father of two, is able to build much of the framework for the product on his own, but has chosen to bring in some outside resources from India and Sweden to work on the development and design of the app. Simon, a magnanimous finance guy originally from Burkina Faso, heads the business thinking and sales side of the company. Over the course of 6 days, I watched them give out over 500 business cards, with Simon chatting up everyone he met while casually explaining the product to a captive sidewalk audience. Their goal for SXSW was simply to raise awareness about their infant brand and sign up users for a future launch. Both of them worked hard exploring and learning everything from the SXSW panels to talking with venture capital managers to make sure they were at enough events to make their presence known. This meant building brand awareness through fairly traditional means; shaking hands, passing cards and sitting with influential decision makers. Their brand is about bringing groups together who want to achieve a common goal, it is as personal a brand as the relationships they are looking to build.

On the contrary, Adam texted to tell me he’d be coming down the day before SXSW. Adam’s Voyurl.com application has been in private beta for over a month and has built up a solid following that’s garnered him several high-profile interviews with publications like the New York Times. (Private beta is where friends and friends of friends are invited to test the product while the dev team releases new updates. For the user it usually involves a lot of patience balanced with the trade off that they were “first”). At the conference, I first ran into him outside the convention center with his messenger bag pulled around over his military jacket. He was handing out printed tags and preparing to give out a couple thousand stickers in a traditional, but effective, guerilla marketing tactic. Like Vineet and Simon, Adam’s goal was also to raise awareness, but he had to go about this in a different way. His stickers, with the tagline “prove you weren’t looking at porn” found their way into nearly every available space at SXSW. His brand isn’t about shaking hands and handing out business cards, it’s about building buzz. It’s the kind of non-traditional product that wants to be promoted as something secret so new users want to have an invite.

These two startups say a lot to me about where the Internet has led us as branding professionals. We can’t assume all websites are the same. We can’t decide that just because someone talks “tech” that they fit into a single category. We can’t assume that simply because startups aren’t treating “brand” with marketing directors and brand managers that they don’t have just as much of a need for it. Brand in the startup space begins with the founders’ vision and then grows and defines the experience of using the product. The logo is both placeholder and promise that must encapsulate both experience and future growth. Voyurl and GiftOpera are different in their brand because the people behind them are different. Yet as each company evolves, their challenges will center around the traditional pressure points of any company; how to create growth and how to ensure the company doesn’t lose what made them succeed in the first place.

Our challenge, as brand leaders, is to understand this offer and redefine how we help these future companies achieve the growth they aspire to.

(this post is pulled from my posting on Wolff Olins blog from 3/23/11)

hero/innovator and the singular dream

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:50:54 -0400

http://www.fastcompany.com/1739935/ten-steps-ahead-erik-calonius

It’s a cheesy phrase; making your dreams come true. But it is because we all see it as an unattainable fantasy, yet this is the thing that our heroes do. It’s why they are “heroes” they transform the image in their mind into reality. They commit themselves completely to a task, they don’t give up, don’t listen to “reason” they simply pursue. Whether these people are athletes or inventors, the process seems to be the same. An indefatigable demand to transform the ethereal image in their minds into a physical reality. These are innovators.

The lesson the innovator learns is that the vision of the thing is only the starting point. That working backwards from the completed product doesn’t end in resolution. It means overcoming things that others see as “impossible” but become possible for two reasons.

1. The innovator knows it’s possible because they can see the final product whether they look into the distance.

2. By overcoming the steps towards the “impossible” they realize that each step makes it more and more possible because each step is a new discovery. (technology leaps only happen to those who aren’t watching where they’re going.)

This article makes me rethink nearly every decision I’ve made since I was 15 and envision an alternative path that could have been. So it’s a wonderful feeling but also a sad one of “could have been” mixed with the knowledge that heroes are the ones who make their dream happen.

My Opinion on Yelp.com

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 11:12:51 -0400

Reading Om Malik’s review of what makes a successful Internet company I was surprised to see Yelp as a leading example. It reminded me of the negative or less than great experiences I’ve had on the site. It seems that every time I’m on Yelp I’m sifting through information for which I have little to no context. I don’t know the people who’s opinion I’m supposed to trust. This is fine when dealing with products or books or even clothes to a certain extent. There’s more context available for each of these. In particular, quality of a product is something that anyone can determine without being to subjective. “Quality” is a fairly universal metric but what makes “good” food is far more subjective. My issue with Yelp and its ability to scale as a company, is that there’s no conditions by which to quickly contextualize each user’s taste. Leaving me with no idea if their version of what “good” is is the same as mine. This means Yelp is more of a listing of locations than a service. This leads me to my second issue; information. Via Yelp you can neither gain an understanding of a restaurant’s menu nor get a bearing on available seating. I have to seek out this information from menupages.com and opentable.com. Yelp would be wise to focus less on glitzy AR mobile features and more on adding these products as features of their service.

Since most products trend towards becoming service within an offer (think iPod device -> iPod App -> Spotify) there is a high likelihood that between Yelp, OpenTable and Menupages we’ll see their offers merging and competing further in the coming year.

Admittedly, I’m on a rant here. I should also admit that I’m being a little snobby. But I also, and I can’t imagine that my point of view is unique.

The next big thing will save you time

Sun, 20 Mar 2011 19:23:00 -0400

I don’t know what the next big thing will be, online or in real life. But what I do know is that it will be able to save you time in the things you want to do but are currently frustrated most by. How do I know this? Because it seems to be the natural trend in our big innovations.

Look at Facebook, what is the real killer app of Facebook? Is it that you can collect friends? That you can play games? Or is it that you can learn quickly about what’s going on with your group of friends? I think the killer app of Facebook is that it makes the sharing and spreading of ideas faster. (You can call “ideas” “memes” if you want, it’s probably a better term but I just can’t; that word sounds pompous to me.)

For example, Facebook has done a solid job of transforming the juvenile, social 1.0, act of collecting friends into a useful application of live stream sharing. We now share as a way of spreading our ideas. We then view and understand the activities of trusted others, our friends, and gain from their ideas. This advances the whole of our society forward and does three things.

One. Content online is now the new, great commodity. Mind you, I don’t mean currency. The currency of the Internet is data. Content is the core commodity. But commodities need a market and that’s where Facebook and other social networks come in. Sharing of content means we’re co-opting content to express an idea that we either a) have or b) want to believe in. This means that online content exists as a commodity within a market we could define as “social equity”. We, as users, share and trade content in an attempt to build up social equity. By thinking of this as a market it’s possible to envision the future path of its development.

Two. Social equity leads to the second effect of Facebook and social networks. Social equity leads to trust, and trust equals value. A trusted person within a network is valuable, not only to the network, which then doesn’t have to work as hard to validate information or search for new commodities but also to the advertiser who can locate trusted figures (marketers call them “influencers” a term I heard first at Nike and now hear everywhere.) These influencers act like nodes in a network, distributing content, thoughts, ideas, and recommendations. In this way social networks have already transformed the way that marketers advertise to us all. By injecting content into our network via our trusted friends they are able to influence our purchasing decisions. Why do you think they want you to follow them on Twitter and Facebook?

Three, I saved the big scary one for last. By sheer scale Facebook is beginning to peck away at the idea of nation-state. Sharing of ideas is non-geo specific. Yes, most users tend to socialize with people who are physically near to them. Yes, language and timezones are barriers. But when these sites learn to add features that adapt for language and timezone then we’re looking at a world where social wins and nation-state is seriously challenged. This might seem like a strange point of view in a world were governments under pressure are blocking the Internet but the reason they’re blocking the Internet is because this effect is already taking hold. It starts with the most conservative and autocratic states first and will move out from there.

So what does all this revolution have to do with the next big thing?

– If we live in a world where borders are less important than ever and foreign information doesn’t need a visa then that means information can flow faster.

– If we live in a world where companies see value in their content as a commodity that drives sales of their product then they will be more likely to fund the creation of more content.

So then, if we live in a world where information flows faster and is treated as a valuable object then “the next big thing” would certainly be based on this system.

If you want to find it first, just look for the web application that makes finding and sharing faster than it is today. Personally, I think it’ll be about physicalizing the experience of sharing through giving, gaming or enabling and I think it will start as mobile and work “backwards” into a website.

Disband Your "Digital" Teams

Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:40:31 -0400

It’s time to get rid of your “digital” team. Not your digital agency or the people who are knowledgable in what digital can do for your company, but the team. Break it up, they aren’t doing you any good.

We’re at a new transition in “digital”. There are enough people online now that every aspect of our lives have a physical and a digital presence. Now that you’ve broken up your digital team you can now take these talented people and put them where they should have been the whole time; integrated into your business. Put them with the teams marketing your product, creating your products and services and partner them with those designing the future of your business. Why? Because they see the world the way it will be. They see the world from a perspective where collaboration is central to success. They see the world from a place where sharing of information walks hand in hand with innovation. Presumably they have the skills to make new digital products which translates to your business testing new ideas faster, optimizing from mistakes and bringing those products to market in new ways.

But most significantly each of them have their own focus and interests. “Digital” people may come with some big loaded titles like “nerd” or “geek” and we may share a certain set of beliefs and ways of doing things (see above re: collaborative workflow) but beyond that there is as much various within this broad group as there is in the real world. Technology trends towards specialization and now that the Internet has reached maturity (yes it has) it’s now time to start letting your people specialize. I guarantee that, within these groups, you have talented people who will transform parts of your business.

The company that begins integrating their digital team members across their organization is the company that will discover the next steps in how we connect with each other and create new types of products, no matter what your business. I’m not saying that the “digital” people are your new leaders. I’m not saying that kids out of college know more about business or have a secret understanding of the future; they don’t. But what they do have is a different way of looking at the world, a different way of behaving with the world and that difference is the direction your company is pointed. Teach us and we will transform everything.

Digital loyalty

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0500

The internet’s ability to democratize our everyday interactions has transformed the way companies create loyalty by lowering the cost of transaction and increasing the frequency of interaction. But this increase in frequency means customers are enabled to try new options or purchase products based on a personalized set of needs. They’re able to discuss a brand among an online community, often trusting unknown users more than a brand they’ve used for years without issue. The conversations themselves accelerate as bloggers and news media, through competition for eyeballs, push to get more information out faster. The consumption of all this content means that most consumers spend a large portion of their time researching potential purchases. It’s said that many purchasers of airline tickets spend more time searching for deals than they do in the air.

Brands are then competing for smaller and smaller increments of people’s time (how many seconds did you give the email promotion you received this morning?). Yet, with access to this data, these increments of attention can become transactions in their own right. We see simple clicks becoming micro-purchases where the transaction is merely consumer attention. As brands begin to understand how to read and analyze this data they can begin to see patterns that translate into, and create an image of, individual users. There are an increasing number of companies who are designing services around thisanalysis.

When you convert data about a transaction into information about a person, a brand begins to understand how to better create a sense of loyalty.

The music industry is the most challenged with understanding how their data leads to creating a better level of loyalty. Music’s availability online means that there is no financial incentive for a fan to purchase the music. Whatever they are looking for is available to them for free. Electing to pay for something that is available for free clearly requires high levels of brand loyalty. As a response to this, the music business is now refocused on telling the story of an artist. The artists become the vehicle for the promotion of their own mythology. The selection of which artist to highlight is based on the analysis of available user data. This is exemplified in the correlation between Justin Bieber’s immenseTwitter popularity and the high volume of his sales. People aren’t paying for the music itself, they are paying for the value of participating in Bieber’s life. His fans are choosing to pay for product that is otherwise free and thereby adding greater value to that product. Their purchase is a vote to other consumers saying that the product is “popular”. This encourages other consumers to elect to pay for the product and gather the added-value to the overall experience. This conversation loop represents a new form of brand loyalty online. Taking advantage of both the power of storytelling (which, unlike product isn’t democratizable) and the effects of internet word-of-mouth.

So while our world is one where the increased frequency of interaction and the lowered cost of transaction seems to create consumer fickleness, we now know that these same tools can be used to generate greater amounts of loyalty. Because a single transaction is cheap, we have come to understand that cheap transactions can combine with a story and thereby generate more valuable transactions. We’ve learned that what story to tell can be understood through available user data patterns. And we’ve learned that by the connection between loyalty, story and transaction, brands are able to build long-term, revenue-generating connections around an experience.

(This is from a post I wrote on the Wolff Olins blog)

Targeted ads and the importance of advertising

Tue, 25 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0500

For the last month I have been staring at khakis. It seems like every website I visit is showing me display ads for Bonobo’s brand of pants. Thing is, I’ve never bought a pair of khakis in my life. I visited the Bonobo website as part of a research project and now am the target of their “targeted ads”. Granted, the site has some innovative ways of purchasing pants and if I were even close to fitting into their demographic, I would buy pants from them.

Then there’s the GE ecomagination text ads. Any and every site that has Google text ads is giving me 100% ecomagination all day, everyday. This one I can’t complain much about. It’s my fault. Five years ago at my previous agency,Syrup, the CTO and I pushed to have our email and collaborative systems switched over to Google Hosted. And since I was a lucky member of the brilliant team that created the ecomagination campaign, I’ve got five years of emails containing the word “ecomagination” in them. What other ad would Google want to serve me? I’m cleary totally and completely obsessed with GE and their “green” initiative.

This got me thinking about what it means to live in a world of targeted ads. With the Super Bowl coming up, we as a nation are about to have a whole bunch of ads to talk about together. The best ads will be viewed millions of times on YouTube and be posted to various Facebook walls with comments like “ROFL”, “OMG” and probably a random troll fight or two. But while good ads ingrain themselves in our culture, great ads are works of art that do more than make us want to buy the product. I don’t think I’m exaggerating here. We use them as cultural and generational identifiers (I guess here Google wants me to write something like “remember ‘We Bring Good Things to Life’? or ‘Gee…no, GE’”).

But what happens in a world where we don’t share the same ads? What do we possibly have to talk about? Ok, ok, we’d have lots and lots of things to talk about. But what do advertisers think will happen if their ads are distributed only to those who expressed interest in their brand? Or what will happen if an ad has to pass through hundreds of targeting bots to be seen by an entire country? I’m sure that there will always be a channel for national distribution but imagine a future where “targeting” has won. If targeting became the primary distribution of ads then it would drive advertisers to focus on their known consumers. In the worst case scenario, targeted ads could remove the great ad for our cultural canon, to be replaced with socially targeted (read: fragmented) ads. In the best case, consumers alight on only their known desires, leaving friends and bloggers to fill in the socially iconic blanks.

All exaggeration aside, my point is, in the marketing world we create bandwagons that our industry jumps upon as the “next best thing”. But what sounds great on paper doesn’t always translate into real-world effective advertising. When thinking about targeted ads, we should remember that, like social media and SEO, they’re just one piece of a bigger plan.

(This is from a post I wrote on the Wolff Olins blog)

Asking Questions of the Wiki-Culture

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

With the 2nd-annual Wiki-Conference happening in New York on August 28th and 29th, I’ve pondered a series of questions about the functions of this open-platform culture.

Primarily, I am wondering how roles are generated within wiki-culture, and more explicitly how authority is defined in an open-platform society. Does the 1:9:90 rule translate to Wikipedia? The BBH Labs-defined concept that 1% of a social media group is generating content, 9% is adding to or commenting on that content and 90% are pure consumers. Do groups of content generators divide further into those who contribute and those who validate? In an ideal world, 10% of the Wikipedia audience would be generating and validating content.

What is the role that traditional authorities could play within Wikipedia? For example, our global society has defined a museum as a place where knowledge is preserved. We have also established universities as places that create experts with validated degrees. But how does an expert become defined within an open-platform and do existing experts deserve greater status? (Is their content then the most valid?) Is Wikipedia a meritocracy of fact generators? Meritocracies can have a hard time self-actuating when facts are the singular means of defining status. A single fact can have multiple points of view but often a source can be wrong, creating confusion built upon confusion.

When it comes to the diffusion of facts, Wikipedia exists as both the pinnacle of open-platform culture and a force for de-validation. The consumer audience cannot be certain that the information they are reading is accurate. Schools rarely permit students to cite Wikipedia as a source, with the aim of promoting better research and fact-based writing skills. However the chase for validation is oft-times faulty because it begins from Wikipedia. The source’s mere existence isn’t enough to validate the content.

Yet I believe the debate about whether Wikipedia is or isn’t accurate is a bottomless pit. A better option would be to pursue greater levels of personal accountability for those who post on Wikipedia. The development of theWikipedia Ambassador program and Wikipedia student clubs are a step in the right direction. But I also think educators and experts should play a brighter role. They can be validated and given a tiered login level making them identifiable to users. This would allow an acclaimed historian to be identified when they edit an entry, ensuring a level of approval and validation for that edit, while providing a reliable source.

(This is from a post I wrote on the Wolff Olins blog)

Net Neutrality & Brands

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0400

In a move surprising to many, Google and Verizon have announced they are near a deal that will add a pay tier to Verizon’s Internet service. The service, which they have been planning for last 10 months, will give preferential bandwidth to paid content over the Verizon network.

What’s surprising is that the move is in conflict with a core tenant of the Internet; that network traffic, websites, email, videos, music, photos of your new baby, etc., is inherently neutral. Net neutrality, as it’s called, states that no single piece of data is more important than another.

There’s are many perspectives on net neutrality both for and against. The debates are extensive and come with variations of what a future will look like with and without it. But how they affect brands, their ability to innovate and their connection with their consumers is not as transparent.

The case against net neutrality rests with the providers of the infrastructure. Currently your Internet service provider receives monthly revenue from it’s customers looking to access the Internet. The goal is for them to create new channels of revenue by charging brands for access to a larger piece of their bandwidth pie. This will create more revenue that can be used for improving network speeds and business models built on-top of a tiered service plan for those willing to pay to be further up the queue of access. For these companies net neutrality is standing in the way of innovations in business.

In contrast, the case for net neutrality is focused on total network value. The value perspective focuses on the fact that networks become more valuable as the amount of information shared (transferred) increases. By adding barriers to the transfer of information the total value of the Internet suffers. For brands looking to create conversations with their customers, promote real interaction and ensure the data pipe is always open, this deal poses a challenge.

The success of this deal could lead to more and more deals of this kind. For an international brand this could evolve to be a cost requiring a new line item in annual budgets. Paying each Internet service provider around the globe to ensure their customers will always have access to their product, services, and content at reasonable speeds on a regional level.

A big player in the debate is the US FCC which has, by Congressional mandate, been tasks with creating a National Broadband plan to improve access to the Internet for everyone in the US. However the FCC’s ability to regulate the Internet was hindered by a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in April. (Though the FTC may be able to regulate the Internet instead.)

Personally, I see equal access to information as a core measure of social and economic success. Net neutrality plays an important role in ensuring this equality.

Here’s links to a couple sources:

Google & Verizon Near Deal on Web Pay Tiers

Wikipedia page: Net neutrality

FCC US National Broadband Plan

FCC and FTC involvement

Cyberlaw expert Lawrence Lessig on Net Neutrality (video)

NYTimes Op-Ed from a fellow Portlander

(who’s far more eloquent about the issue than I)

(This is from a post I wrote on the Wolff Olins blog)

The Challenge of Late Adopters

Sat, 19 Jun 2010 20:30:04 -0400

An article in the June 2010 Wired Magazine makes some good points on the challenge posed by the late-adopter. In the search for new markets and new consumers, the late-adopter market is a seductive one. Imagine a large cross section of society that refuses to buy the latest device or change to the newest technology. From the point of view of the marketer this demographic represents a massive challenge to growth. Yet the decision to leapfrog isn’t something that can be forecast and projected. It’s affected by lifestyle, by broken devices that can’t be fixed and by external forces like Santa Claus showing up with your first iPod (you’re welcome Dad.)

However I think there is one consistent element in the buyer’s decision of when to leapfrog, usability.

I think it’s fair to say that the more complex a technology is to use, the slower the adoption rate is for it. For example, as computers became less and less complex through the 90s, the adoption rate became exponential in the consumer market. Yet I was in a taxi recently with a cabbie who had just gotten the latest Android phone because his wife suggested it. He was baffled by it. Couldn’t figure out how to do the things that his old phone did and didn’t know why he would want “apps”. In this case, the usability of the device didn’t facilitate the leapfrog for the late adopter.

In contrast, Apple’s products (and advertising) center around usability. Devices that just do what you want them too. It makes for a powerful message. Harmon Kardon is another example of product and marketing that is centered around usability (only the buttons you need) and not overwhelming the consumer. It may sound like a lowest-common-denominator method of development but both of these examples are of products that still provide advanced features to the “super user” while simplifying the interface for the late-adopter.

What we, as innovators, should keep in mind is that this isn’t just about devices, usability affects the adoption of any new technology. Because as users we have to be able to figure out a service, product, or offer before we can want it. We have to know, or imaging we can know, where we’ll land when we make that leap.

You can read the article here.

(This is from a post I wrote on the Wolff Olins blog)

David Cameron Might Be On To Something.

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:01:00 -0500

And why Americans should listen

David Cameron, the Conservative leader of Britain, has been actively proposing that we now live in a Post-Bureaucratic age. He has been promoting this across Britain and even spoke at TED via webcast. The concept is quite simple. The availability of data and the ease of connection between citizenry and government has moved us from a top-down government structure to a community-up structure. His primary example is that in many States here in the US public spending is, just that, public. The information on major projects spending is posted online for citizens to pull and review. But he takes this a step further. His goal is that any Pound spend above 25,000 ($39,200) would be published online and that private companies would be allowed to compete on price with the incumbent government vendor.

As further reported by the Economist, he has now proposed that public-sector organizations be run as co-ops. Eg. nurses could manage their clinics, job advisers could run over their employment offices, etc. The intention being that by running their own “business” the costs of operating will go down as internal waste goes down.

The debate is then: is all of this a good idea or will two awful things happen? One, government contracts will be reduced to a purely cost-based valuation, ignoring quality. And second, that co-ops will lead to inconsistent service across Britain as some co-ops become better funded than others. (personally I fear nurses could end up wearing something between a ManU jersey and a NASCAR car but that’s another story.)

What’s interesting is that Mr. Cameron has yet to propose the obvious solution. His example is based upon information being posted online and his theory is that we live in a “post-bureaucratic” age. My personal opinion is, I believe in both of these ideas because I believe that the Internet enables communities to become powerful. I believe that people should have access to their government’s information and that we live in an age where government will be improved by increasingly engaging the public to act. So what’s Mr. Cameron missing from his thesis?

He is missing the idea of “quality”. How can he maintain quality if government contracts are reduced to a cost-based bidding process? How can he ensure healthcare will be delivered effectively if the co-ops are run with individual P&Ls? (like they are here in the US.) As usual, the Conservatives in Britain are referencing US policy and attempting to optimize it to the British people’s benefit. But they cannot ignore the quality and consistency issues that we suffer from here in the US between rich and poor areas.

I also think there is a solution that can be used to help ensure quality and consistency. Citizens will need a feedback loop where they can comment, report and review the services they’re receiving. The people who are delivering the services, as well as the people delivering the review should both be account able to government. This would allow government to play the smaller role that Cameron is proposing (something I don’t totally agree with) because government would only be expected to play “mediator” between service givers and receivers.

This system of review would be very worthwhile here in the US, pushed out as a free txt message system or iPhone app. Followed up with email and posted to a website that tracks, visually, all the data coming in, allowing citizens to view how good or poor services are in their area. Most important however, would be tools provided by the government to ensure that the service providers (co-ops) would be able to learn and discuss best-practices across their region and nation. For government contracts it would be important, again, for government to mediate quality but this should be put in the hands of the men and women using the products and services not politicians who, no matter how altruistic their intentions, are simply not trusted.

Using digital services in this way we can all have a more effective society, one where we participate together.