a hundred avatars

Planning killed the connections star

Maybe or maybe not. No time to respond really (and i've been meaning to read this for weeks anyway) but I quite liked this presentation from Gareth and Jason. Apparently connections planning needs some fixing. Hear hear. What doesn't? ;-)

Connections Planningness

View more documents from Jason Oke.

Wing + LATISM

OK, they kinda got the name of the agency wrong, but I'm not complaining. It's always an honor even to be nominated (ahem). 

I just found out that Wing has been nominated by LATISM (Latinos in Social Media) as one of the “Best Hispanic NY Marketing / PR Firm using Social Media”.

 
This is a totally spontaneous, crowd sourced nomination from the latino social media / blogging community. Apparently we are the second most nominated company.
 
The award show is this Thursday and whoever gets the most votes, wins.
 
If you want to participate in the vote, please go here or http://latism.org/latism-ny/latism-ny-finalists/

… and click on the “VOTE NOW” link. There are a number of categories that you can vote on if you wish, or leave blank. Our category is the fourth and we are at the bottom of the list.
 
Feel free to also forward it so we get as many votes as possible. Thanks! 

Twitter is for old people and apparently so is boring research

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6703399.ece

I thought this article was interesting, as much for the (half baked) insights this kid has as for the idea that one kid, texting a bunch of friends can make a piece of research that is more valuable that all the other stuff a huge investment bank is generating.

Kind of makes you wonder if we or our clients are using our intuition to dig for consumer insights or letting 'corporate constipation' stand in the way of digging for good ideas.

Anyway, it was interesting and sparked some very good ideas. (thanks Eliza for sending it to me.)

Just one personality, please.

Loved this description of the new digital life we lead from an introduction to an article about The-Dream written by Sasha Frere-Jones in the New Yorker.

One way to understand social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace is to consider that  younger digital natives are not necessarily being exhibitionists when they post photographs of themselves and share personal details there. Instead, these users are living a life in which consciousness is spread out evenly over two platforms: real life and the Web. Rather than feeling schizophrenic or somehow pathological, digital natives understand that these two realms divide the self much as speech and the written word divide language, a division that humans have lived with for a long time without going bonkers

Based on some new research I've seen lately, I think there is an increasing unification of behavior and thinking between the mobile and 'wired' world as well.

New really means new. Different really means different.

I was fortunate to be invited to participate in the Horowitz “New Generation: Everyone, Everywhere, All the Time” conference.  At the conference Adriana Waterston presented some of their findings.  Afterwards a group of us were asked to respond to the implication of these changes on how people and brands behave. 

Some thoughts:

(Caveat: I don’t have the presentation yet so although directionally the data is right, I may be a little off in my numbers. Deal, ok?)

The behavior of the non-White members of the New Generation (18-35) across multiple screens is shockingly distinct from that of White non Hispanics. Although black, Latino and Asians do all the same things (user generated content, mobile video, etc etc etc) we’ve heard “the kids today” do,  Horowitz found is that they do it all a lot more. A lot.  

For example, about half of  non Latino whites 18-34 make content vs. about 70% of Latinos the same age. Blacks and Asians fall into the middle. Blogs and social networks also vastly overindex. Huge implications for brands and others who want to connect with these groups, right?

Broadband penetration does lag amongst Hispanics. A bit more than I thought. But when you control for age, it’s pretty much a commodity amongst younger Latinos. So what content are you giving them to fill the fat pipes going into their homes? And once we all have 4G speed on our laptops and cell phones?

Another point:  The question isn’t which latinos under 35 have smart phones that can deal with social networks and mobile video. The question is which Latinos under 35 don’t  have them.

The future? Already here.  Multicultural youth aren’t lagging what used to be called the general market in adopting and adapting new technologies. This intense use of multiple screens tells me that however much non Hispanic whites who have grown up digital feel underserved and underwhelmed by most of the content they have, Hispanics in particular are fleeing options in both English and Spanish in droves.

Yes they still watch TV. In both languages. But the dissatisfaction they have with existing options is driving them increasingly to create the content themselves.  If I were in the content business (wait, I am in the content business, aren’t I?) I would push to find more ways to shape that across mobile and broadband and engage them in the creation and selection of content that feels right for them.

Brands who believe in the market have a responsibility to make this stuff come into existence.  This isn’t just about doing the right thing, it’s about doing something that makes money and creates a new and better reality for everyone. 

This may be a bit cliche, but I read a quote today from someone’s profile on Facebook (wish I could remember whose) from Antoine de St Exupery that sums it up:

If you want to build a ship
don't herd people together to collect wood
and don't assign them tasks and work,
but rather teach them to long for the 
endless immensity of the sea.

Our people are already heading for the beach. Let's make the experience as grand as we can...

Is Obama wrong?

OK, those of you who know me will wonder about that headline. I don't mean to say that Obama is wrong on the issues. I tend to agree with him on those, both cultural and policy, but for a great communicator he and his teams have made a strategic error in branding that has left him open to having his message co-opted by the Republicans.

The Obama campaign has been rightly lauded for its innovative use of social media. But to the point Jason Oke made a while back, today's media, social media, requires a different grammar. It also requires a slightly different way of thinking about how brands work and are built. And this is where I think Obama requires a course correction.

In other words, he needs to listen to his own message and CHANGE.

The Obama campaign offers an interesting case study in a theory that has been making the rounds in the last few years among account planners and others who think about these things. It's the question that John Grant raises in his Brand Innovation Manifesto. Should a brand (in this case Obama) be consistent or merely cohesive?

By focusing on 'Change We Can Believe In' Obama differentiated himself from Clinton and gave the Democratic Party a voice after 8 years of the Bush Administration, even if he ended it with a preposition. This single minded voice, in combination with Obama's nuanced and inspiring speeches, has given a consistent platform that makes it clear what Obama means. If Noah had a politicaltags.net, Obama=Change.

But. In today's environment, consistency will only get your foot in the door. Grant's thesis is that in order to maintain interest, brands need to behave more like people. Rather than be structured hierarchically, brands need to structure themselves like molecules. In the same way that multi-faceted people are more interesting than single minded people, and molecules are composed of different elements that come together to form a whole, brands need to bring together disparate elements that hang together well, without being repetitive.

By being overly consistent, Obama has made it easy for an admittedly unique set of Republican candidates to begin to co-opt his message of change and distract from core issues.

Obama has a fantastic opportunity in the next 2 months to begin to open up his message. In the same way he began to define 'Change' in his Denver speech, he now has the chance to add elements and facets to this message that add layers to his campaign using non-verbal, non-rhetorical devices.

This does NOT mean what it's meant in the past. I'm not suggesting he needs to policy wonk his way out of this a la Al Gore or start riding in a tank like Michael Dukakis. The best example of a brand with a complex and inspiring molecule-like structure remains Nike. At its core the brand is still about performance, but with every new communication, design or line of business, they redefine what that means and how they bring it to life.

Like 'performance', to stake your chances on change means that you must be willing to be hoisted by your own petard. To stake your chances on change means adapting quickly to win.

Part of this is in messaging, part is tactical. Where are the kiosks in malls with information, or t-shirts for sale? Where are the pop-up stores 4 Obama? Where are the flash mobs? What does round 2 of Shephard Fairey look like? The guerrilla documentaries with webisodes on the life and travails of an average American family after 8 years of Bushonomics? And on, and on.

Now is the time for change, or else everyone on both sides wouldn't be talking about it.

But to get that chance, there has to be a willingness to .... Change.

Visualizing Everything (your world just changed)

This article from a High Productivity Computing newsletter (via PSFK) covers something I've been very excited about for quite a while. I've only read the article twice and glanced at Manovich's site, but still. Wow.

In so many ways the usability of information technology and the sheer quantity of data that we produce (like this very blog post or all the places I went with my mobile phone today) create a trail can help define how we do everything we do. What's great is that since we can do anything now and look at anything all we need to figure out is what the right question is.

Oh, that's all?

This is also clearly related to the approaching 'singularity' where businesses and agencies that were in very different businesses from one another oh, about three minutes ago are now very much treading on their toes. The race is already won by the swiftest designers. Remember elasticity?

The ability to read and render that data easily has the potential to liberate those of us in the business of creating culture from decades of mediocre (let alone bad) research and free us into a space where ideas drive understanding and data is not a sample, but a given.

I particularly like Lev Manovich's coinages in the article, 'Big Humanities' and 'Cultural analytics.'

Both terms, I think, nicely capture what's so different about this approach and how it is powered by ubiquitous and powerful computing.

As has always been the case, technological change puts more pressure on everyone to do what we do better, more beautifully and more creatively. Especially the culture creators and especially the quant jocks.

So, does our world change if you can see more of it?

Old Fart Stands Athwart History...

In this video, Jon Steel stands athwart history, shouting, "Stop!"*

And you know what? He's right...

The more I get enmeshed I get in digital ideas, iPhone applications, social media platforms, etc and the more I'm fascinated about how technology affects our lives, the more I realize how critical (and often underutilized by clients and agencies) the basic tools of account planning are.

So, while I don't think any of us really want to stop progress (frankly things are a whole lot more interesting now, and I suspect Jon would agree), there's no need to reject the work it takes to invent a great idea and make it feel effortless.

Effortlessness takes a lot of work.

Jon Steel: Planning at 40: Solving the wrong problems from JWT on Vimeo.

*The term 'old fart' is used by permission, sort of, and in a spirit of agreement with said old fart. Jon is neither old nor a fart. Oh, and there will be a prize for anyone who recognizes the inspiration for this quote.

Synthesizing the System of the World

No, not that synthesizer.

This post from Renny Gleeson over at Wieden hits the nail on the head.

As he puts it:

It seems to boil down generally to this:

• "digital" shops tell you "traditional" shops don't get (meaning, of course, 'understand' or 'do well') "digital", "social media", "viral marketing", or a host of specific functionalities - e.g., SEM, SEO, mobile development, etc., etc., etc.
• "traditional" shops tell you "digital" shops don't "get" "branding", "craft", "storytelling", or "advertising".

He goes on explain a number of reasons, all contradictory and all true.  The problem? Both types of agencies are right and both are wrong.

A few thoughts on why this is just a blip on the path to the dissolution of the distinctions that make an agency ‘traditional’ or ‘digital.’

1. During any period of change there are always exceptionalists (either traditional or radical) and synthesists (traditional or radical).
2. It’s not about the past versus the future. It’s about the extremists versus holistic thinkers. Never know who will win. It's good to be extremist, but it's even better to be the best kind of opportunist.
3. Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should. As in love with the digital world as I am, the more I get pulled that way, the happier I am to have the tools I've learned through the years that help create big ideas rooted in human insights.
4. The history of ideas is the history of this tension between exceptionalists and synthesists and the resulting creation of a third, better system of the world.
5. All this talk reminded me of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which I’ve decided to include here, just because I can. It's a good reminder that there are different, and better, ways to approach information and what you do with it.

/derivative rant

How the future was created and will be too

At risk of turning into a Kurt Anderson fanboy, I wanted to point out the recent segment on Bell Labs.

No new news there. But still...Our world was created at Bell Labs. (What is it about New Jersey, anyway?)

In any case, although perhaps past its prime, Bell Labs is fascinating (and well worth further investigation from those of us paid to generate ideas and create possiblities) as a case study in how to create an environment of trust and creativity.

Unlike Microsoft, these were guys who used their monopoly well to invest in pure research that transformed the world (OK, unfair, Microsoft has transformed the world, just not as elegantly as I would like) without having to worry about how it affected their quarterly P&L.

Some things I took away from the segment:

1. Open collaboration works.  Put enough smart people into a safe space where failure is encouraged and rewarded and you will be rewarded. Use this as a case study the next time someone says that creativity is a solitary act. Yes, people still say that.
2. Diversity breeds innovation. Diversity goes beyond racial/ethnic diversity (although that helps too). Mix up disciplines, get ceramicists working on semiconductor problems.  Planners don't need to call their ad the 'bad ad' anymore.  Creative really isn't just a department, although far too often it is and good ideas can only come from there. Except they don't always. So pay attention to the media guy. Invite software developers into the process at the beginning.
3. Create chance encounters.  The segment demonstrates how the value of people being invited to meetings that are on the face of them irrelevant to their core competence.  No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. (Albert Einstein, probably). Which leads to...
4. Design and architecture matter.  Space breeds or influences culture.  In the case of Bell Labs,  the lunch room became the petri dish for ideas and collaboration. Think about how the space in which you work affects behavior and inspires chance encounters.
5. Eliminate red tape. Hard to do in the era of Sarbanes-Oxley etc, but this fact makes the suits even more important than ever.  Just as good strategies clear a space in the mind, great business and client sense clear a space in the world for the miraculous.

It worked for Bell Labs...