The Social Media MBA Blog by Karl Long

• This Blog Sits at the: innovators and the university (the d-school)
  this wonderful article by Grant McCracken discusses products/brands as combinations of function and meaning and talks about how d-schools are better positioned to help with these problems that b-schools
  (tags: d-school b-school design culture)

• The Revenge of the Generic
  how Target has changed the perception of the “store brand” with designer offerings
  (tags: design design_strategy brand branding)

I think I have to call bullshit on Steve here, just because mainstream media “participated” in social media in 2006 doesn’t change the essence of what social media is. Kind of like me pissing in a lake doesn’t change the what that lake is.

To me the difference between social media and “the media” or “big media” is control and influence. Social media is primarily controlled by the participants, by the viewers, readers, listeners etc. where as traditional media is primarily controlled by an organization with a narrower agenda like a corporation, or a political party.

In the spirit of the recent tagging meme that has been floating around i’m going to tag some folks that i would like to weigh in on this, how about it David from Logic and Emotion, Pete from Mashable, Neville from FIR, and Shel from FIR, and Joseph from Jaffe Juice.

Anyone not familiar with creative commons, it is a really easy way for anyone to create and attach a license to any work they create. It gives individuals and businesses a really simple framework to share creative works while still maintaining a say in how it get’s used. In many ways I see the Creative Commons as an incredibly important engine of co-creation (ie. businesses that co-create value “with” their customers).

Well on January 18th a CC (creative commons) board member will be hosting a mixer where people can pitch CC related business ideas to other entrepreneurs and VC’s. Looks like a really interesting event, hope to see some folks there.

Tip of the hat - Joi ito

• Predictions In Media for an Unopened Year - New York Times
  some interesting ideas in an article from the times on what may be coming up in ‘07 for media
  (tags: social-media marketing)

Merry christmas everybody, i’m lying awake in the UK at 5am with some wicked jetlag, so what else is there to do except tool around on youtube. Well ever since I saw this daily show bit i’ve been waiting for it to show up on youtube, it’s brilliant.

Link for feedreaders

“it’s almost as if consumers have moved on because mainstream media has abdicated its responsibility”

Well i’ve been tagged, twice by Jake at the community guy and by David at Logic+Emotion on this “5 things you don’t know about me meme”.

Ok, so here goes some intimate details:

1. I’ve worked as a Tree Surgeon, on a pig farm and in a Toy Factory
2. I was in the Grenadier Guards (British Army) and have stood guard outside Buckingham Palace and was in the first Gulf War (the short one). The guards “basic” training is 22 weeks and is one of the hardest in the army, they are also one of the oldest regiments in the army formed in 1656.
3. I have hiked up Mount Washington with a snowboard on my back and ridden down Tuckermans Ravine
4. I played the Artful Dodger in a school production of Oliver
5. The first computer I owned was an Amiga 500

And I’ll pass it on to:

Paul Whitaker of myphonerocks.com
Victor Lombardi of Noise Between Stations
Gene Smith at Atomiq
Steve Portigal
John Winsor

Good luck everybody

This is a great presentation from Shufflebrain that talks about game mechanics in the context of social software. This is a wonderful expression of something that I have felt intuitively about social media for some time, but have never been able to articulate. The interesting part is that i’m in the process of helping design a site about gaming but had not thought so much about how many sites are like games of collecting, connecting and competing. Anyway, the game mechanics they beak down in this presentation are:

1. Collecting

2. Points

3. Feedback

4. Exchanges

5. Customization

Tip of the hat

• Del.icio.us popular sites
  a nice little app that highlights some of the most bookmarked sites over various time periods, like 24hrs, 1 week, and 1 month. Very cool
  (tags: bookmarks social-media popular)

DareJunkies is a site that went into beta today and will go live on january 1st that “challenges” its community to do something stupid on video and send it in. The community then votes on the best versions of a particular challenge and winners get cash prizes. Sounds like a legal nightmare, but it looks like a lot of fun.

This particular challenge (i’m guessing from watching the video) is to smear peanut butter on yourself and then go to a dog run, it’s pretty freaking funny:

Link for feedreaders

Looks like a very interesting concept and money is a great motivator that’s for sure. I wonder if the same concept could work for less exciting, but more useful concepts like cooking demos? tutorials?