Archive

Lawrence Lessig for Congress

Published
by
Karl
on February 20, 2008
in Co-Creation
. 0 Comments

Political? Maybe, but I think if Lawrence Lessig does run for congress it will be one of the most significant political moves marketed and enabled through the internet and social media, a truly grass roots effort. He may be running for the 12th district in California but he would be IMHO the Congressman for the district of the internet, as founder of the creative commons, and being on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In many ways the amount of support I think Lessig will get from the web this may well turn into first global campaign to get a congressman elected :-)

Go to lessig08.org to show your support, and read about his mission further at change-congress.org, you can also join his 3,300 strong group on facebook

Draftlessig.org has just noted they have raised $20,000 in the first 48 hours

Political Advertising 2.0

Published
by
Karl
on February 19, 2008
in Co-Creation
. 0 Comments
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
A. J. Liebling
(1904 - 1963)

The Black Eyed Peas recently did a music video which was a mashup with Barak Obama’s “Yes we can speech” and has been watched by over 4 million people. This parody called “No we can’t” mashes up John McCain sound bites in a similar fashion.

For more on interweb presidential politics check out Techpresident.com

The Clue Train 10 years on

Published
by
Karl
on February 18, 2008
in Advertising
. 4 Comments

The cluetrain manifesto, a book conceived 10 years ago, predicted and described many of the forces that have been most disruptive to business enabled through “web 2.0″.

A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.

The point “markets are conversations” was true then but the impact of that statement has been realized very slowly by businesses over the last 10 years. Amazingly the advice and insights in this book is still extremely valid, although the tone is probably a bit strident at this point, no one should need convincing as to the truths laid out in this book.

There was recently an even in New York to discuss the relevance of the cluetrain 10 years on which was liveblogged by Josh Bernoff at Forrester. At this conference Doc Searls had a few words to say about advertising which I think are worth noting, as I think companies and agencies are still addicted to an increasingly infective and failing format/approach.

1. Advertising as we know it will die.

2. Herding people into walled gardens and guessing about what makes them “social” will seem as absurd as it actually is. (Facebook is his example.)

3. We will realize that the most important producers are what we used to call consumers. (Yup.)

4. The value chain will be replaced by the value constellation. (Many connections.)

5. “What’s your business model?” will no longer be asked of everything. (What’s the business model for your kids?)

6. We will make money by maximizing “because effects”. (”Because effects” are what happen when you make more money because of something than with it.) E.g. search and blogging.

8. We will be able to manage vendors at least as well as they manage us. (Agreements between companies and customers shouldn’t be skewed in favor of the companies.) At Harvard Law they call this VRM — vendor relationship management — which is what Searls is working on (projectvrm.org).

10. We’ll marry the live web to the value constellation. (The Live Web isn’t just about stars. Relationships of anybody to anybody.)

Case in point advertising on social networks, take a read of this Business Week article on the effectiveness of advertising on social networks.

Marketers say as few as 4 in 10,000 people who see their ads on social networking sites click on them

Getting back to “markets are conversations” surely at it’s worst advertising is fake, inauthentic, monologue, because companies are scared to have a conversation, that’s the stuff people tune out? That’s probably the bulk of advertising, but surely at it’s best advertising can spark the conversation?

So what mechanisms does your advertising agency provide to help “continue the conversation”?

David Lynch on watching movies on your phone

Published
by
Karl
on February 14, 2008
in Fun Stuff
. 1 Comment

LOL, this is pretty damn funny, wear headphones if your at work because as usual he does slip a naughty word in there.

As it happens I just came across a report about mobile tv watchers which claims that Ex-mobile tv watchers are outpacing new mobile tv watchers. In other words more people are dropping the service than starting it. Apparently the things that are driving people away are issues of reliability and quality:

After price, former mobile users cite quality and reliability as the second most important reason for their disenchantment.

That being said 60% said they would sign up again if the quality and reliability improved.

What do you do during commercials? 95% not watching

Published
by
Karl
on January 30, 2008
in Advertising
. 4 Comments

ads

Just read this over at JaffeJuice and Joseph extrapolates that the chance basically only 5% of people with the TV on are actually paying attention to advertisements. Wow, I thought it was only half of advertising that was wasted, we just didn’t know which half :-)

41.2% are channel surfing, 33.5% talking to others (in the room or on the phone) and 30.2% mentally tune out.

Anyway, I’m not sure how representative I am but I can’t bare to watch television that is not time shifted in some way, in fact if I happen to channel surf and find something I want to watch i’ll pause it, and go an do something else for a while and come back so I can watch it with the option to fast forward. Interestingly I do find myself on occasions rewinding if I see a movie trailer or something I’m interested in.

Source: BigResearch

Nailing First Experience

Published
by
Karl
on January 30, 2008
in Marketing
. 2 Comments

I found some stunning figures on the Marketingcharts.com web site regarding Ecommerce, seriously, I always knew the internet was going to be big, but these numbers are mind-boggling.

More than 85% of the world’s online population has used the internet to make a purchase - increasing the market for online shopping by 40% in the past two years - according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Survey on internet shopping habits.

Another significant point made in this study is that most consumers shop at the same site, in fact 60% of consumers said they tended to shop at the same site over and over. What this means is the first experience that shoppers have with your site matters, big time, you let them down the first time they will never be back. Nail the first experience, and loyalty seems to be almost built in.

where do you shop

This goes for any “first” on your web site, this goes for your registration pages, sign up forms etc. if you lose people their you have likely lost them. On a related note check out this article I wrote a while ago called What Is Your Sign Up Form Telling People, seriously they can even be fun :-)

Death Of The Influencials - Debunking The Tipping Point

Published
by
Karl
on January 28, 2008
in Co-Creation and Viral-Persuasion
. 6 Comments

When I first saw the link on twitterFimoculous with the title “Is the Tipping Point Toast?” I thought someone was going to debunk the whole idea behind it. But what was being debunked was just the concept of roles of people involved in making a trend “tip”, and most importantly the influencer’s. Sounds terrifying to most marketers because the whole idea of finding and cultivating influencers is often the cornerstone of “seeding” viral/WOM campaigns, and as they say in the article marketers spend millions on this process.

The article is on fast company and key point of the article though is to point out that it is not the people spreading an idea that matter as much as the idea itself, and societies readiness for the idea. I think this is one of the reasons that ideas that are laser focused on a niche often succeed, it’s because the idea can be much more finely tuned to appeal the people who will initially receive it. Once it is successful in that very small niche it’s likely you will have the critical mass to get out to the broader audience you seek. It’s kind of like starting a fire, the niche is the kindling

Watts believes this is because a trend’s success depends not on the person who starts it, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend–not how persuasive the early adopter is, but whether everyone else is easily persuaded. And in fact, when Watts tweaked his model to increase everyone’s odds of being infected, the number of trends skyrocketed.

“If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one–and if it isn’t, then almost no one can,” Watts concludes. To succeed with a new product, it’s less a matter of finding the perfect hipster to infect and more a matter of gauging the public’s mood. Sure, there’ll always be a first mover in a trend. But since she generally stumbles into that role by chance, she is, in Watts’s terminology, an “accidental Influential.”

It reminds me of what Jonnie Moore was saying on his blog recently about social objects:

So don’t let all the talk about social objects make you think that marketing is all about the props. The props are great if they spark relationships, and they may look important as markers of relationships… but they’re not the real magic.

And Guy Kawasaki agrees :-)

Need to learn about search engines - SEOMoz.org

Published
by
Karl
on January 28, 2008
in Customer-Experience and Marketing
. 1 Comment

Even when a customer is canceling an account it is an opportunity to engage in a positive way, even if it is just making it easy for them to cancel. This is in stark contrast to a lot of “retention” strategies that are designed to keep you on the phone, and pressure you into renewing when it’s the last thing you want.

I’ve been a customer of SEOMoz.org for about 6 months and it was only on canceling my account that I felt compelled to give them a recommendation, mainly because canceling my subscription was such a pleasant experience. Basically their subscriptions are handled through paypal currently, which as any paypal customer will know is hellaciously difficult to manage for the customer and really only lets you know you have a subscription when it renews, so anyway I picked up the phone and chatted with Gillian and she took care of it and even let me know they are working on a new billing system as they are unhappy with paypal for the exact reason i stated.

In their premium content they have got some very juicy and relevant articles like their 50+ page report on Social Media Optimization Strategies, and their guide to Viral Marketing or Linkbaiting.

If you want a preview of their thinking and writing check out their blog which is a valuable resource as well.

Concious Capitalism - Upcoming Panel at the Commonwealth Club SF

Published
by
Karl
on January 27, 2008
in New-Strategy
. 2 Comments

I’m really looking forward to this panel next week at the Commonwealth Club, it’s called Conscious Capitalism and it is covering topics that I often find myself thinking about and discussing. There must be something in the air as even Bill Gates recently called for kinder capitalism.

The panel is next wednesday (january 30th), it’ll be interesting to meet Nathan as we’ve corresponded over the years but have never met :-)

RAJAN DEV, Chief Operating Officer, Hot Studio
ERIC RYAN, Co-founder, Method
BRANDON SCHAUER, Experience Design Director, Adaptive Path; Co-author Subject To Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World
NATHAN SHEDROFF, Program Chair, MBA in Design Strategy program, California College of the Arts; Co-author, Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Customer Experiences

CONSCIOUS CAPITALISM: RESOLVING THE CONFLICT BETWEEN CONSUMERISM AND PROGRESSIVE INNOVATION

Why are there 50 varieties of toothpaste on grocery store aisles? How does this fit into the world’s heightened awareness of the need for sustainable business practices, and our own growing individual needs for self-actualization and meaning? Leaders in business, design and innovation will debate why a deeper understanding of human nature needs to be central to a 21st century business strategy and how it can challenge people’s attitudes toward consumerism.

Edumacation

Published
by
Karl
on January 27, 2008
in Co-Creation and Get-Smart
. 3 Comments

Found this video on Jonnie Moore’s always thought provoking blog. It’s a collaboration of 200 students in an anthropology class that looks at the defining characteristics of students today.

It certainly seemed bleak in many ways, and illustrated how the modern school system of lecture halls and chalkboards were antiquated, but what surprised me is how much the web was mentioned but mainly in the context of facebook. Isn’t there a wealth of information out there on the web, what of wikipedia, or the mountains of blogs out there written by smart, thoughtful people, if they were anthropology students weren’t they reading Grant McCracken? I’m just saying, how many of them were blogging, podcasting, putting videos on youtube? Well actually they are all blogging at http://mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg/?p=119″>mediatedcultures.net, and of course they put this video up on youtube which has been viewed almost 1.5 million times, and they used a wiki like service to edit the document to put the script together for the project, so thankfully it did go beyond facebook :-)

Anyway, the video did immediately reminded me of Sir Ken Robinson’s amazing talk he gave at TED in 2006 asking the question “do schools kill creativity?”.