The interwebs confused my conversation

Having used the interwebs for years and years, I had forgotten that it's still very easy to misunderstand someone when talking online. Now, I'm not just talking about email, I'm talking IM too. I consider myself somewhat of an online talking expert - I do it a lot - and I've been doing it for years. But then something like this happens (conversation was on IM):

me: So, I'll pick you up on Sat at 6:30 and we can decide whether to go on a bike ride or what - it might be too hot for a bike ride
friend: Sure - gosh you're so busy we have to plan on Monday for Saturday
me: Nah, not always - I'm not doing anything tonight - I just have a few things going on later this week
friend: Ok, well how about a movie then?
me: Yah that sounds like a good plan. It's never too hot for a movie. Ok 6:30 it is.

You see what happened right? I didn't. I got a call that night - basically saying - "Hey where are you." But *I* thought we had made plans to see the movie on Saturday instead of going on the hot bike ride. My friend thought we had made plans to see a movie that night. Ugh. It was funny and interesting all wrapped up in one misunderstanding.

We all know things like tone, sarcasm and some jokes are hard to "get" online... but it's not often I completely miss someone's point. And I thought I was good at communicating online.

I stand reminded.

Twenty Years Ago was a Long Time Ago

In 1990, Michael Porter, who is evidently a guru for marketing folks (though I'd never heard of him until I started my MBA) - wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled, "The Competitiveness Advantage of Nations." You guessed it, I have to read it for class.

It's amazing how much things have changed in the two decades since it was published, but it gives an interesting window into "the way it was" and the way it is "transitioning to be." In the article, he talks about what makes certain nations global players in an industry, while other nations, try as they might, just can't get in the game. In true Porter style, he has some interesting things to say (if not a very engaging way to say them). His points center around this: competition encourages excellence, and communication between companies, competitors, and the marketplace is paramount to innovation.

Makes sense. Yet, in his day, this relied on geographical proximity.

Here's an example of his thoughts:

"Suppliers and end-users located near each other can take advantage of short lines of communication, quick and constant flow of information, and an ongoing exchange of ideas and innovations."

Clearly, you don't have to be located near each other to experience that benefit anymore. The world is our marketplace. Global feedback can be immediate. Online communities offer a marketers pre-established focus groups - ready and willing to give feedback on ideas.

It's really very exciting.

User Generated Content - Unintentional Selling Tools Can be Very Powerful

My MBA class made this video to introduce the incoming class to the EMBA experience. Note - I am *not* in it, I got an evil stomach thing on the day of my scene.



In just a short time, it clearly relates our core values and some key points about the program:

• we work very hard
• we have no life while school is in session
• we're very team-oriented
• we're supportive
• we also have a really good time

The video is also a fantastic marketing tool - (which was not lost on the administration). While it's not formal enough to post it on the school website, you can easily imagine them making a reference to it when talking to prospective students. And the fact that it is *not* formal and that it is consumer generated makes the testament so much more powerful.

How could other companies leverage this concept? It's not hard to imagine:

• Show us a new way to use our product
• Show us a day in the life of you and our product
• User-generated "how to" videos
• And so much more...

"Never ending" hype about Web 2.0

MySpace and Isobar & Carat recently commissioned a report about social networking that focuses on MySpace. Though offering nothing ground-breaking, it's a quick read and basically reinforces what you already know. It also has some nice charts and stats to add credibility to our trusted paradigm, that is, people are really into this social networking thing. All kinds of people are into it, of all ages, and the interest is building, not waning. And they are really, really into it. A lot. When you study the stats, it can get a little overwhelming.

We also know that marketers have caught on. Now we (the marketers) just have to keep focusing on how to exploit this new medium and the people that spend so much time there. We will have our evil way with them. Oh yes, we will.

I will say that I found some of the interviewee quotes a little disturbing. Here are two:

“I can’t come home from school and not want to go on MySpace.
I wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, and go on MySpace.
I have to in the morning. My mom gets so mad. I have to check on
MySpace in the morning because maybe at 3:00 in the morning
someone wrote me a comment. I just have to do it. It’s addictive.”
— Britney, 17, Los Angeles

“It just hooks you in there and you’ll just sit there and you’ll look at
people’s profi les or you’ll just randomly browse what’s going on, and
you just can’t stop. And you’re looking at the watch and you thought
you’d just sit down for a minute and you ended up sitting for an
hour, like what the hell am I doing?”
— Paul, 25, Chicago

I'm not really sure why I find them disturbing, I'm all about connecting and connecting online is the bomb. But some of the comments seemed to broach on internet addiction. Good stuff for marketers. Weird stuff for our society.

5 Signs Everything dot.com is dot.com again (in Austin) and 5 Reasons It's Not Quite There

1. CA tech companies are trying to lure away Austin developers - I've heard a lot about this lately. "Like dude, I see you loving on our geeks." But alas, we know about your evil income tax.
2. Everyone who wants one has a job.
3. There are brand new shiny startups - but this time they come with (gasp) revenue models. Ok not all of them.
4. Everyone's talking about online community (but now we call it Web 2.0).
5. All the good sushi places are PACKED.

What I Miss From dot.com Days

1. Charging my clients $150/hour.
2. Being in my 20s.
3. Ignorance of the term and implications of "budget."
4. The sock puppet.
5. The parties. Can anyone say "LAUNCH PARTY!!!" Sure, there are still parties around events, but excess is tempered with drink tickets and hangovers.

In short, I'm glad the economy is back, I'm glad that some of the stock that I own is actually publicly traded, and I'm glad that my favorite sushi restaurant is doing so well.

But I miss being naive and thinking the money would go on forever. Dot.com 2.0 is really burdened by this whole reality thing.

It's not your information... it's how you *use* your information that matters

I saw this map recently linked from a post that made it onto Techmeme:



According to this map from National Geographic, I should have been living large while I was in the Bay Area. That wasn't really my experience, but perhaps all those single men are geeks that don't get out much.

In other strange map news, I read a recent New Yorker article about "million dollar blocks" in NYC. These are not where the wealthy live, but rather, where the very poor and oppressed live. "Million dollar" refers to how much is being spent to imprison residents of those blocks.

Informative, yes.



Here is a Village Voice article about the same topic (the New Yorker isn't online).

Both maps could form the basis of many a research paper (the second one is a whole research initiative). And both are super valuable because of the way they combine information.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Mmmm. Mashups.

News Flash: Online Community Doesn't Matter to Retailers

Jupiter Research released a new Report in which they take the interesting and somewhat befuddling stance that "social and community network sites have little impact on influencing online retail sales."

I know, I'm staring at my screen in amazement too. To me, thats somewhat akin to saying, "friends and family have no impact on determining what people buy." Because, of course, in our digital world much of our traditional social interaction happens online. Ok, so perhaps if you are selling glucose monitors for seniors, social networking isn't going to make a huge difference to your bottom line - but if you are selling the latest greatest tech gadget or any item aimed at teenagers - you better get online into your marketing plan.

The other thing that is really confusing about this, is that marketers KNOW that these community sites matter - and they are increasingly seeking more devious ways to get their messages embedded around, beside, and within them.

Here is a quote from the Jupiter report:

"Retailers would be better served to take a step back and evaluate how effective tactics really are – and with whom – to make a stronger impact with the right audiences rather than succumbing to trends,” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch.

And here's another:

“From a branding and advertising perspective, social and community sites are garnering a great deal of influence online,” explained Patti Freeman Evans, Senior Analyst with JupiterResearch. “But when researching a product online, shoppers are looking for fundamental information, not entertainment or social interaction. In the end, the consumer is still interested in convenience and efficiency and social and community sites are just not that efficient.”

I think Jupiter totally missed the point. People are going to these sites and interacting with other people. When they considering a purchase, they ask their online friends about their thoughts. When it gets time to research specifics, yes, they may be looking for information. But lots and lots of statistics say that even at that point, online reviews of a product have an enormous impact on online sales.

I haven't read the whole report, because it costs money and information wants to be free. But unless it totally contradicts what the press release says... all I can say is... Hi Jupiter - this is the modern world. Sit down, stay a while, and we'll show you around.

Facebook vs. MySpace

The preps vs. the outcasts?

Evidently kids know this already - but Facebook is for good kids and the party people all hang out on MySpace. Who knew? Turns out marketers knew. Those smarty pants!

http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html

Keeping it together... when you're not

The WSJ had a great article about working together in virtual teams - since you have to be a subscriber to read the whole article - I'll give you the highlights along with my compelling commentary!:

1. invest in an online resource where members can learn about each other - can anyone say... Social Media!
2. choose a few team members who already know each other - this makes a lot of sense, but they do say that if you have too many people that know each other - then there is a tendency for the group to become stale and predictable. You need fresh people and ideas to keep interest and energy up.
3. identify boundary spanners (people who have and make a lot of connections) and make sure they make up at least 15% of the team - these people serve as social glue,and are seen as SO valuable that they make it into #4 as well
4. cultivate boundary spanners as a matter of practice within your organization - having these people throughout the company helps ensure that more people will meet and collaborate
5. break the team's work up into modules so that progress in one location isn't overly dependent on progress in another - some members will be out sick, some will be more productive than others, and some tasks just plain take longer. If you can plan activities so many things can be done in parallel, it helps ensure no one is sitting around waiting for other groups to catch up. In short, everyone can be productive all the time.
6. create an online site where a team can collaborate, exchange ideas, and inspire one another - this is an offshoot of item #1. We live our lives online. Give us a way to collaborate!
7. encourage frequent communication, but don't try to force social gatherings - social gatherings early on - bad - get to work first. Social gatherings later on are good - when you already have a working relationship.
8. assign only tasks that are challenging and interesting - well sure - that would make everyone's job a lot better - but I don't think this one is actually do-able in practice. Some things just have to get done - and they might have to get done by a virtual team - and they might not be very interesting.
9. ensure the task is meaningful to the team and the company I'd argue that if the company doesn't care - why do it? But meaningful to the team? Again, you might be asking too much. Some things you don't care that much about just have to get done. I really don't care much about my lawn being mowed, but it's got to be done. So I make sure it gets done. Same with going to the dentist 2x a year. Some things are just necessary, yet not very interesting.
10. solicit volunteers as much as possible. This is a great way to make sure people want to be involved. This is the root of the open source movement - as well as Wikipedia and other online collaborative projects. If people are inspired, they will get involved, stay involved, and give it their all.

Most of the best practices here aren't that different from basic working best practices: meaningful work, frequent interaction, and a place to collaborate.

A lot of what I've read says that teams that share the same values do better together - and teams that get together often are more productive - but I think it's more about being on the same page. If you want to be there, you're working on something you want to work on, you touch base on a regular basis - and you have the tools to do so effectively - I think any team can be pretty successful. I am noticing - and taking note - of some sorts of conversations that should be had in person. I'm going to keep a running list of those and publish them in a few weeks.

Mmmm Mashups!

See what is being uploaded to flickr and where it's coming from:

http://flickrvision.com/

jakob says, "I'll take mine in vanilla"

I've been seeing a few
posts lately that claim that Nielson is against Web 2.0. I don't really think that's the case... I think he's against most everything when used frivolously (and in his definition, the threshold between frivolous and necessary is reached very quickly).

From his site:

This is not to say that there's no role for new technology. We're currently working with a company that's placing an extremely complicated application online. They can't do this with good usability unless they use several "rich UI" tricks. But that's an application, and a big one to boot. For 90% of websites, it's more important to focus on communicating clearly, whether they're e-commerce sites, corporate sites, government sites, or non-profit sites.

And that's the rub. So many sites are just done so poorly, that slapping some community features in them isn't going to save them or make them places people want to visit.

User first. Bells and whistles later.

Hi, I'm Bob and this is my best friend Nike Air

JupiterResearch just released a new report, "Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape." For those who have been paying attention over the last few years, nothing in it is a big surprise. However, the report does give quantitative credibility to those initiatives we (who do not live under rocks) have known to be true for some time.

The summary: if social networking is a party, it's about to be sponsored by marketing tools everywhere. They can smell money, and they are on it.

The old marketing idea of "making the brand your customer's friend," well, it just goes one step further in the social networking space... the brand can actually BE your friend. Just add Coke or Pepsi as your literal MySpace friend and there you go. You're in with the in crowd.

In addition to documenting the viability of this new venue, Jupiter found that, "30 percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers' opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only 10 percent trust an advertisement," something an Austin startup, BazaarVoice - also quantified about a year ago.

Nothing here is groundbreaking, but it does mean that social networking and the Web 2.0 way of thinking is gaining some real credibility. You can now officially sell it to your boss and budget-doler-outers.

Now, what I really look forward to is some really innovative campaigns/implementations.... come on... impress me!

Interview with the creator of "that wonderful web 2.0 video"...

John Battelle of SearchBlog was fortunate enough to interview the creator, Michael Wesch. It's a great interview... what an interesting person! You'll recall the video posted by fellow maven ryin.

Read the interview.

Video: Evolution of Web 2.0

Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Kansas State University, offers this thought-provoking video about the evolution and meaning of Web 2.0.

Besides the energizing background music, the video also contains this pithy definition:

Web 2.0 is linking people ...
... people sharing, trading, and collaborating ...

Wesch also highlights ideas such as tagging that provide semantic meaning to documents, photos, and videos. Finally, Wesch emphasizes the importance of xml in facilitating the automated exchange of data. The video is worth a few minutes of your time.