2006 June

Jun 30, 200611

The Co-Creative Business Show #1 coming Tuesday - SecondLife The Topic

The Co-Creative Business Show #1 will be coming Tuesday, all I can say is the guests I had on have set the bar way too high, and I think it will be all down hill from here
The topic of the show is “Second Life - the Co-Creative business”, and I had three extremely brave, and excelent guests on the show. David Fleck (David Linden), VP of Marketing for LindenLab, Gif Constable (Forseti Svarog) VP of business development from The Electric Sheep Company, and Jerry Paffendorf (SNOOPYbrown Zamboni), the Resident Futurist for ElectricSheep.

The show talks about co-creation, secondLife, some upcoming features (Voice over IP is coming), the secondLife eco system, how businesses are using it, the economy, society and the future.

I can’t thank the guests enough for their participation, I had a blast.

Thanks so much for everyone’s patience but I think the first podcast is always the hardest, but hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Cheers,

Karl

Jun 30, 20061

Ford - Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying

The revolution will not be televised, it will be blogged, and people will comment on it. This is the prologue for the new online series that combines the Real World with Corporate Change Management. They got me, but my expectations were so low after their insipid “Bold Moves” TV spots, that anything is a step up from that.

Comments are on, people are watching, they use terms like “blog this” and “embed this”, I’m interested in what happens. This looks like a grand use of social software by a corporation to try and engage a somewhat disenchanted nation.

I will be watching. So far the only thing that is turning me off a little is the actual comments that are getting through, I havn’t seen a negative one yet which is a big warning flag for me.

UPDATE: here’s a comment with some heart and authenticity

Change or Die!
Adapt or Wash-Out!
Get busy living or Get busy dying!

All are very valid viewpoints. Our market is global and it’s refreshing to have leadership acknowledge that we must pierce the bubble we have living in. Quit lying to ourselves and take a sober look at what’s going on around us. Competition - damn good and valid competition! You want to live - get on with living then, because it isn’t going away. The competition has successfully capitalized on the US market - and they like it. They are not leaving!

PLEASE, let’s not take a short run mentality anymore. Change should be continuous. Implementing changes takes time and measuring results and building quality metrics takes time. This is not a football game! And the stakes are more credulous than attendance record. The Japanese do not kill a car platform just because it didn’t hit their production numbers. They assess, correct and try again. This approach has merit. Give it time and tools to succeed.

I applaud Mr. Fields for his leadership and his willingness to address hard issues - dead on. I support you sir!

Let’s quit calling meetings without resolve and become engaged in truly productive change that will last.

If we must change or die, why does it appear that 80% of the folks in this town appear to have chosen death! Wake up-please!

It’s early days, but just after watching the prologue, i’m rooting for them.

And in my best CNN voice “lets see what the bloggers are saying”

Adrants: Ford Finally makes Bold Move

BL Ochman: Ford’s “Bold Moves” Isn’t Perfect, But It’s a Great Advertorial

BOLD MOVES from Ford – or not?

Jun 29, 20060

JupiterResearch - Everyone Blogging By 2010

Not really, i’m just reading into it. JupiterResearch claims 70% of all fortune 500 companies will have corporate blogs by the end of this year, which even for an enthusiastic blogger like me seems a little… optimistic. Wait, here’s a quote.

JupiterResearch, a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on business, reveals that 35 percent of large companies plan to institute corporate Weblogs this year. Combined with the existing deployed base of 34 percent, nearly 70 percent of all site operators will have implemented corporate blogs by the end of 2006.

Hmmm, I wonder what impact the internet and emerging consumer technologies is going to have on their business, lets see.

Interestingly Ross Mayfield of Social Text, and Chris Anderson of Wired created a wiki to track fortune 500 blog usage, it’s called “The Fortune 500 Blogging Wiki”, and they are tracking about 6% of Fortune 500 blogging.

Funnily, it also struck Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing as a rather high number as well so she sent them a note asking them if they could clarify how they had got that number as it seemed a bit high, and this was the response:

Information about JupiterResearch reports are available to accredited members of the press for free and clients.

After looking at your blog link JupiterResearch has decided not to fulfill your request for more information since the blog is closely tied with your company that serves as a consultancy. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this earlier, I didn’t realize that your company and blog were so closely affiliated.

If you’d like more information about becoming a client or purchasing a report, please let me know.

Now I heard about this today on the For Immediate Release Podcast which is a pretty well respected podcast on, of all things, PR and business communications, needless to say they panned Jupiter for this.

you don’t want to get tagged as clueless when your investing so much time and recources in convincing people that your one of the leading resources of information on this topic

My advice for Jupiter:

Google people before you blow them off, Toby is a pretty well known blogger
Google topics before you make outlandish claims (google “fortune 500 blog” produces the fortune 500 blog wiki)
If your going to report on blogging, get someone who knows about social media, preferably someone who’s been blogging for a while
Turn on comments, right now your analyst blogs have no trackback and no comments. Imagine if you could have answered this question in a comment, no shitstorm in the blogosphere

Oh, and I’d love to meet some of the execs from this report:

According to a new report, “Corporate Weblogs: Deployment, Promotion, and Measurement,” currently 64 percent of executives spend less than $500,000 to deploy and manage corporate Weblogs.

Wordpress + Mint + Technorati + flickr + delicious + Feedburner + FactorX = I saved you 450,000 (it’s 50k for factorX)

Call me!

Jun 29, 20060

The Conundrum of the Workshops - Rudyard Kipling

When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mould;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves, “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”

Wherefore he called to his wife, and fled to fashion his work anew –
The first of his race who cared a fig for the first, most dread review;
And he left his lore to the use of his sons — and that was a glorious gain
When the Devil chuckled “Is it Art?” in the ear of the branded Cain.

They fought and they talked in the North and the South, they talked and they fought in the West,
Till the waters rose on the pitiful land, and the poor Red Clay had rest –
Had rest till that dank blank-canvas dawn when the dove was preened to start,
And the Devil bubbled below the keel: “It’s human, but is it Art?”

They builded a tower to shiver the sky and wrench the stars apart,
Till the Devil grunted behind the bricks: “It’s striking, but is it Art?”
The stone was dropped at the quarry-side and the idle derrick swung,
While each man talked of the aims of Art, and each in an alien tongue.

The tale is as old as the Eden Tree — and new as the new-cut tooth –
For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;
And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,
The Devil drum on the darkened pane: “You did it, but was it Art?”

We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yelk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: “It’s clever, but is it Art?”

When the flicker of London sun falls faint on the Club-room’s green and gold,
The sons of Adam sit them down and scratch with their pens in the mould –
They scratch with their pens in the mould of their graves, and the ink and the anguish start,
For the Devil mutters behind the leaves: “It’s pretty, but is it Art?”

Now, if we could win to the Eden Tree where the Four Great Rivers flow,
And the Wreath of Eve is red on the turf as she left it long ago,
And if we could come when the sentry slept and softly scurry through,
By the favour of God we might know as much — as our father Adam knew!

Views: 933,124
Comments: 5485
Favorited: 9831 times

The question is, did stride gun create a viral advertisment, or were they a patron of the arts?

Go see the page on youtube

Inspired by zekesneakers comment

Or perhaps this is simply ushering in “the age of the dabbler”. Well, actually Wired calls it “the age of peer production”.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/people.html

In any event, if you are anything of an art historian you will remember that the Renaissance was the age of the dabbler also.

Hey, should be fun!

Big Tip of The at to Chroma

Jun 28, 20064

A TV Pilot That Never Aired Gets Viral

I love this story and hope i’m not the last person in the world to blog about it, I would hate to become totally redundant. So there’s this TV pilot that was filmed last year titled, ironically enough “Nobody’s Watching”, and it’s kind of a show within a show about two friends who want to create a sitcom and the WB is making a reality show about them making the show. Anyway, it got axed, never aired. Except someone uploaded it in three parts to YouTube.

These are the stats for the first 10 minute segment:
Views: 291,600
Comments: 645
Favorited: 2249 times
Awards:
#49 - Most Viewed (This Month)
#34 - Most Discussed (This Month)

So this is what? the long tail effect for TV pilots?

Youtube the new “focus group”?

A venue for niche shows that only 1/4 of a million people want to watch?

In the end there has always been a tension in the Creativity & Distribution relationship, the music business knows this, the movie business knows this, and the TV and Ad business is getting to know this. As distribution becomes cheaper, and the tools used to create becomes cheaper more innovations in the way we experience and participate in media will become possible.

BTW funniest line in the show was in reference to show related clothing.

“But no-one wants a pair of boxer shorts with “Smallville” written across the front”

“No, but i’d buy the pair that said Everwood”

Go take a look this is the first 10 minute segment

Jun 28, 20065

Losing Control

Three stars in the firmament of the blogosphere connect to form a new constellation, or maybe this is a horrer scope.

Steve writes an excelent piece on how the universal fear is losing control. Richard writes how YouTube’s traffic doubled in may to 12.6 million unique visitors. David writes how an AOL customer recorded his conversation with AOL when trying to cancel his account, and his interview with Matt Lauer is on is on YouTube.

Jun 27, 20067

YouTube Bigger Than Jesus

Not really, i’m just reading into this statement by the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer of one of the worlds largest advertising agencies (Mark Tutssel of Leo Burnett):

YouTube, which publishes video clips and has greater US reach than MTV

This was part of a financial times article titled YouTube bigger than MTV’ for advertisers, sorry for the repetition, but you get the point. The Ad Men are proclaiming they “get it”.

successful future campaigns would need to imitate viral content - so-called because of its rapid spread online - by being easy to consume repeatedly and to forward on, said Mark Tutssel, worldwide chief creative officer at Leo Burnett.

Marketers must learn to let go of the control they think they have over their brand…. Once consumers have interacted with brands they will not go back to being shouted at by marketers.

Word on that point.

YouTube may be the part of the story here, but it is co-creation that is at the heart of this. IMHO YouTube’s days are numbered once the content creators move over to revver, revver is a competing service that pays content creators for the amount of times there content has been watched. So what i’m saying is, what if you created 30 second spot that was so good that people sent it around to their friends, and you got paid every time someone watched it. Huh? an ad supported ad… Hell yeah, at least then they’d put some effort into the creative, the humor and the story. Advertising is not the problem in my opinion, shit advertising is the problem. Advertisng that aims to give me misinformation, and treats me like “the great unwashed”, that has no soul, no authenticity, no humor.

In the end advertisers have to be careful, glomming onto YouTube, Myspace or even secondLife because they are a collection of eyeballs is going mean more disconnection, disillusionment and suspicion just in an interactive environment. The question is how do you move the conversation forward, how do you empower your customers, how do you connect with your customers creativity, how are you going to LISTEN.

YouTube hailed as advertising medium of the future

Jun 27, 20060

Global Warming - Global and Warm

I do think Seth has a point about global warming being almost too positive a term for something that we need to galvanize some action around.

Ari Sharabi has been contacting marketers to ask them to try and make a difference by posting something on their blog.

We are, in many ways like the proverbial boiling frog. The idea being, if you drop a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out. But put a frog in cold water and gradually raise the temperature very slowly, eventually the frog will boil to death without realizing there is a problem.

The posts bellow are all from other bloggers who have risen to Ari’s challenge to write something:

BTW I created a tag in delicious called no-mans-land, we could use that to pull together all the posts on this topic in technorati and delicious.

Jun 25, 20060

W+K nike campaign

Come on England!

It’s a rare piece of traditional advertising that stops me in my tracks. Admittedly I’m from England so this strikes a cord for me, and captures, dare I say, some of the “passion” that surrounds football.

Phew.

The campaign was done by Wieden + Kennedy in London, and they’ve got a blog post that details a lot of the coverage in the UK

Tip of the Hat

Jun 25, 20063

de.licio.us powered

Hi all, I just updated the way my links are managed and all i can say is I fucking love delicious. In fact you could say it’s delicious. It’s funny actually, i’ve had a delicious account for a couple of years but have not really taken advantage of it, i’m very habit driven and it can sometimes take a while for me to adopt a new technology. I experiment a lot, but for me to totally commit to a change in behavior it can take a while.

Anyway, the reason I’ve raving about delicious is that all my sidebar links are automatically coming from delicious, and it’s even grabbing the favicon as well, which I think ads some visual interest.

I’ve actually changed my linking strategy a little bit, and i’ve got two kinds of links. I have top level links to blogs and podcasts that I read regularly (podroll and blogroll) and then I have topical links that likely link to articles of interest on specific topics. My blogroll and podroll are just tagged in delicious with those words, but the co-creation links and customer experience deep links to articles or posts and are tagged both with the topical tag (co-creation or customer_experience) and a “toread” tag.

Hopefully the result of this is instead of a mile long list of blogs going stale, the links on the right will link to things that are influencing my thinking and writing, and hopefully be a bit more valuable.

BTW the really nice piece of code that i’m using from delicious to produce those links can be found here Go here for the delicious help page on rolling your own link list

The one thing I need to figure out is how to add a generic favicon for those sites that are missing it, I can hack javascript a bit, but this is a little beyond my ken, anyone want to take a stab?

BTW if you don’t have a favicon you should reall get one, it’s really starting to matter a lot more as people consume your site in different ways.

Next,

ExperienceCurve by Karl Long