Passion2Publish

Follow me, please!

Hey everyone, I bet maybe a few of you are shocked that 1) you're getting a post from me, and 2) this blog is still in your reader. :)

I just wanted to let all of my subscribers know that I've moved on, and soon this blog will be redirected to my brand spanking new site what consumes me.

If you're a fan of Imagination Publishing (I know you are) you should follow their brand new blog The Minds of Imagination. (hey, and they got a slick new site as well -- new is the new black) I post there from time to time and the incredibly brilliant editors there fire off posts pretty often. Erin J. Shea's posts in particular are worth the click.

You can follow the tale that is Bud at BudCaddell.com and at what consumes me.

Thanks again for your attention and readership over the last two years. My sheer gratitude can't be put into words. So, I'll use a photo!

Imagination Publishing Has a New Blog

Hey everyone,

Go check out a new blog for Imagination Publishing here at http://imaginepub.wordpress.com

Current posts include the future of marketing and what the heck is going on at imaginepub.com.

New Job, New City

Hey readers -- I've got some big news I'm now able to share with you: I've moved to NYC.

Last week I loaded up the car and made my way east. In Manhattan, I have started a new job as a Strategist for Undercurrent. Undercurrent is a digital think tank where I will be lending my expertise to connect brands to the digital generation, or the born digital generation, as Undercurrent puts it.

It's been over a year now that I've been writing here for Imagination Publishing and in that year, I've seen Imagination adapt quickly to the growing digital opportunity. I've learned much of what I know today from the incredibly bright people who work there and from the clients that trusted in our vision for their brand.

Although I am leaving Chicago, the executive team at Imagination and I have been working to create a role for myself where I can continue to consult, especially on accounts where I am involved and invested.

With all this in mind, I find myself asking, "what to do with Passion2Publish.com?" -- I'm no longer in the publishing biz, but everything I've discussed here is exactly the kind of work I'll be doing moving forward. I'm working on a new site and I hope when its ready that you'll follow me over. But I'm also hoping that you'll tell me how I can serve you better in a new site. So speak up, dammit.

I just want to take this opportunity to say thank you for reading and commenting on this site. Its truly been a privilege to have your attention.

Subscribe-To-My-Twitterfriends'-Blogs Day

Uh, huh. I'm spreading a meme. Call me Typhoid Mary, or that monkey from the movie Outbreak. (pictured to the right)

Here's how it works:

If you follow me on Twitter -- subscribe to my blog feed.

And my twist --
If you read my blog, or subscribe already, follow me on twitter.

Then, leave me a comment on my blog or a message via Twitter with the URL of your blog or your twitter page, and I'll follow you back.

I'm creating a folder in my Reader dedicated solely to my twitter/blog pals.

Why in the world would you do this?

Through blogging and micro-blogging, I've been able to *meet* some incredibly bright people. But there's a limitation to the context of our conversations -- and in turn, the richness of that dialogue as well. By tightening the distance between us, we can color in some of that context.

What I Learned at the SEED Conference

Last Friday I had the opportunity to attend the SEED conference here in Chicago. What is this SEED conference you ask?

"A One-Day Conference on Design, Entrepreneurship & Inspiration, by 37signals, Segura Inc. & Coudal Partners."

First off, the conference was inside the Rem Koolhass designed Tribune Student Center -- which is an amazing building itself, nestled in the middle of an entire campus designed by Mies van der Rohe. So, the fact that my attention was diverted from drooling over that much beauty is testament to the value of the conference. But I definitely used the breaks to walk the halls with my jaw on the floor. If you live in or around Chicago, or are just visiting, it's definitely worth the trip in the cold.

If you want my minute to minute thoughts of the conference, go check out my twitter feed. (dive down to Jan 18th tweets)

Here are my top 5 take-aways:

• Small decisions are the way to go. Jason Fried of 37 Signals talked a lot about how his team focuses on breaking any task into tiny decisions to make their work more manageable and also to remain agile. That beats my method, turn your back until the decision is the size of Godzilla and work to create some kind of mecha-godzilla or Mothra solution to combat it -- which usually leaves Tokyo destroyed.
• Be blunt up-front. Carlos talked a good deal about always telling the absolute truth to your client, especially in the initial stages of the relationship. "Tell the truth when you're still friends. An enemy is just a friend that you told the truth to too late." If you know me personally, you know blunt honesty isn't something I lack -- this presentation just supported my stance.
• Meetings suck. Literally. An hour meeting isn't just an hour meeting, it's a billable hour per person stuck there. Jason also talked about how when you schedule a 30 minute meeting, even if you're only covering 8 minutes of material, it will stretch itself out to cover the full 30 minutes. Also, when you know you have a meeting in 20 minutes, you're less likely to start up a new task. The solution isn't to cancel all your meetings, just make fewer of them, and make them count. Or, send in your stunt double.
• ADHD is your friend, not your enemy. Jim walked us through his business and how a failed television series lead to a series of sometimes profitable, always engaging business ventures. To me, it speaks to the need that you have to be intellectually agile and curious, not just focused on pushing out product. Ramp up your trials and errors.
• Property rights are still a hot topic. Jason, Carlos and Jim opened up the floor for a free forum at the end of the day and it was largely overtaken by discussions about the thin line between copying and stealing. Jason builds experiences, Carlos sells tangible products, and Jim trades on ideas -- but all were easily annoyed/angered over past run ins with unscrupulous people.

Unintended Consequences

Forward motion, evolution, advancement -- These are rarely precise endeavors. We work  with clients moving in to new spaces, courting new customers, or talking to their existing customers in new ways, and we are continually responsible for an answer to the question,

"But what if ..."

When transportation and communication between people was limited, extremely limited, it was important that those people lived in very near proximity to each other. Of course, that proximity lead to a multitude of unintended consequences -- disease and the scarcity of resources were the hardest to overcome. Resources like water. In Rome, the Tiber river and local springs were enough for a while, but as more people crowded around the center of trade and culture, these sources became polluted. People started dying.

When the Romans were trying to overcome not only the lack of water, but the lack of fresh, clean water, they built the aqueducts -- probably the greatest invention or building project of ancient times. But in order to carry the water miles from its source, and to prevent it from seeping back into the ground, they needed a non porous material to line the channels with.

One great thing about lead is that it's incredibly abundant -- if you're mining silver, you're gonna get lead out of the process. Another great thing is that it's incredibly malleable -- it has a low enough melting point that you can even start to mold it in the heat of a campfire. If you heat lead up, pound it flat, and then roll it, you get sturdy pipes. The one bad thing about lead, especially lead pipes, is that it causes lead poisoning. Generally, people start dying.

But they didn't -- at least not because of lead poisoning -- we can tell by looking at their bones, where lead collects in the body. Why weren't they dying from lead poisoning? Unintended consequences. Turns out, the source of water they were drawing from was pretty heavy in calcium. As that water slowly made its way through the aqueducts to the thirsty citizens of ancient Rome, that calcium started to build up in the pipes, creating a thin layer between the water and the lead. Certain death avoided.

Doing anything new carries risk alongside it. The best companies iterate on a massive scale and work to move measurement and action in step with one another. We live in a world of constant blowback and yet there is no way to predict exact action/reaction or cause and effect. But stagnant is not a safe position in this market. We can work to measure risk and we can equip strategies to cope with change, but ultimately the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

We protect our clients from risk by being forward thinking, restlessly curious about your customers, experienced and damn good at what we do.

That's my answer.   

My One Piece of Advice for 2008 ...

... is to turn your brand into play-doh.

Concede ownership, drop barriers, and increase customer efficacy.

Commit to becoming malleable -- adapt to your customers, encourage feedback, and respond + reward it.

Co-create and cooperate in 2008.

Earn their permission and use their attention intelligently.

Learn to be a good listener before you attempt to speak.

Recognize your mistakes and apologize quickly and often.

Seek out the conversation that goes on outside of your walls.

Be what, where and when your customers need you.

Hire your fans.

Create a cult.

Enrich your customer's identity.

Protect them from scale.

Live, breath, and spread the fact (not the story) that every interaction impacts the brand.

Leveraging Scale vs Scarcity

  The threads which led to this topic really came from everywhere (most of my thought processes resemble bowls of spaghetti, I've decided) -- but were crystalized (or twirled together, to not mix my metaphors) upon re-watching the Enron documentary, The Smartest Guys in the Room.

Aside from being the cautionary tale that it has become, Enron is also a great catalyst for talking about leveraging scale vs  scarcity.

Scarcity? It's much more complex than it sounds, but essentially Enron was playing with the power stations in California in order to create artificial scarcity -- and then profiting from hugely inflated prices. Enron got tired of boring old supply and demand, and got creative. Law-breaking creative.

Scale? You build the pathways first, then monetize them. Remember the failed partnership between Enron and Blockbuster to offer movies online?

Ever used Google? Or Twitter? I recently read something Jason Calacanis said in reference to Twitter, "Running a startup is NOT about revenue anymore--it's about critical mass. It's about scale. When you're playing in the big leagues with unlimited access to capital you shouldn't worry about revenue BEFORE you have critical mass."

Too bad Enron was booking imaginary revenue to an idea the moment it was conceived -- revenue that their investors expected to see materialize. But Jason might also want to watch the documentary as well, I've seen very very few startups that succeeded by ignoring revenue, and we're supposed to be smarter than the first bubble was. I'm too old for that level of hubris. Right?

By creating mass without a fully realized revenue plan, you run the risk of building a channel that inherently will ignore you or revolt against you later. (See Facebook SocialAds and Beacon) When Twitter decides to flick that revenue switch, the entire industry will be holding their breath.

Then I ran across a post by Seth Godin, where he said, "Most items of value derive that value from scarcity. Digital changes that, and you can derive value from ubiquity now."

The answer isn't to try to create scarcity, but to evolve the fundamental proposition of your business. Seth and others talk a good deal about how new marketing is all about permission -- critical mass is great, but unless you're using that scale to learn more about the crowd and then following up with relevant, tailored, intelligent messaging, you're just creating traffic. And it all begins with earning permission from your customers.

Seth also points out that a scared customer isn't a happy customer. Enron's movements in California created mass confusion and unrest, which ultimately hurt their efforts in arguing for energy privatization in other states. Outside of energy monopolies, its pretty hard to keep a customer when a competitor pops up with the same offer minus the fear. (sound like the Giuliani problem?)

I've talked in depth on this blog about the end of scarcity -- especially for creators. We're facing an ultimatum -- leverage scale or continue floating on a melting sheet of ice.

This post is a little everywhere at once and nowhere for very long, but here's something to ask yourself, where is your business headed? Can you survive digital?
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I apologize for not updating sooner into the new year, dear reader. I was extremely busy doing some strategic synapse firing and working with the bright kids here to help launch a new project.

Merry Christmas from Passion2Publish.com

Hey everyone!

Hopefully this will find you a few days AFTER Christmas, even though it is 1:23 am Christmas Day! I just wanted to take the opportunity to be one of the first to wish you a merry Christmas, or relaxing break, and thank you for taking the time to read my blog this year. I started Passion2Publish.com at the end of January this year, and what a rewarding experience it has been.

I've met so many incredible professionals through comments and back links, and in turn, my own knowledge and communication of social media has steadily grown and improved over these many months. I am truly grateful for your attention. The only way I can see to pay it back is to continue providing relevant research and thoughts through this blog.

As always, please let me know how I can respond better -- every single comment gets my direct attention and reaction, so make your voice heard. There are some amazing events coming soon in January that I can't wait to share with you, so STAY TUNED!

This is Bud in last-minute shopping mode (taken at whole foods in Austin):

The Top 10 Articles Now at Passion2Publish.com

A new feature on the site, below are the top 10, most read, articles on the site over the last month:

For Nov 11-Dec 11:

1. Why I love Twitter, and Introducing Twitter Airlines
   
2. Measuring the Return on Engagement
   
3. Rant: Starbucks, Pass the Cheer, and It's Red Again
   
4. Web Metrics, Are You Missing the Engagement Mark?
   
5. How to Build an Online Community, Our Process Revealed
   
6. It's Statistics Tuesday! Teen Shopping & Multimedia Usage
   
7. Social Media Creates Efficiencies: An Example
   
8. Measuring Participation Inequality in Social Networks
   
9. Driving Traffic with StumbleUpon and Jumping Bunny Rabbits
   
10. How to Launch a Magazine

UPDATE: I used this post as a test to see if presenting content in this fashion would increase page views per visit. The numbers say it didn't. Any comment?

Study Says Word-of-mouth Beats “Highly-connected” Influencers

Via, A soon-to-be published study co-authored by James Coyle, assistant professor of marketing in Miami’s Farmer School of Business and of interactive media studies; Elizabeth Lightfoot of CNET Networks; and Ted Smith and Amy Scott of MedTrackAlert, is said to show that the practice of segmenting 'evangelist' customers could be a waste of time:

The findings contradict a common advertising practice of segmenting and pampering the few elite and highly connected consumers believed to have the most persuasive power by suggesting that instead, most people can influence consumer behavior through viral communication or word of mouth.
"This study provides a fresh alternative for those who have been confused by the mysticism of influencer marketing consultants,” said Smith who is a CNET Networks Research Fellow and president of MedTrackAlert.

We find that trying to track down key influencers, people who have extremely large social networks, is typically unnecessary and, more importantly, can actually limit a campaign or advertisement’s viral potential,” said Coyle. “Instead, marketers need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages.

A few of my thoughts:

• Can anyone explain to me why scientific studies need to be promoted this way, in which the results are advertised before publication, without any shred of data?
• What the study appears to be describing is the ability of social media to enable more customers to become fans and more fans to become evangelists. Digital media strengthens influence circles by making connections far easier to create and use. The labor involved with spreading word of mouth has been lessened.
• Digital media also enables us, as marketers, to identify evangelists/influencers with much greater ease -- basically, through analytics and conversations, those customers 'bubble up' to our attention.
• Not all of your customers will pass along information -- plenty of research has been done to show users segment themselves by their activities -- with in-active users around 50%.
• We segment users by influence to limit costs. With finite resources, we are forced to make determinations about the best use of advertising dollars. We also keep in mind likelihood of repeat purchases. (which is often another characteristic of evangelists/influencers)
• Word of mouth/"viral potential"/traffic is not a business objective. Conversions are. I wonder if this study tracked word of mouth AND conversions -- as most campaigns I've been a part of have shown that evangelists/influencers are much more likely to bring actual purchasers to the site.
• The mysticism of influencer marketing consultants? mysticism? Do I confuse anyone?

2008: The Shift is Coming, Mobile Content Creation

Looking at these various studies, its clear that mobile content delivery will soon be a requirement of doing business and a potentially lucrative one at that. It being the end of the year and all, I'll venture a forecast that by 2009, most large companies will be struggling with creating an engagement model around mobile content.

The top mobile activities right now are IM, music purchasing, tv watching, and content uploading -- clearly, people are doing more than simply consuming media on their mobile devices. What's your brand experience on mobile? Nothing? Eek. Well, I mean, maybe that's alright, maybe your target market is 75 years old and Amish. No? Ouch.

Sure, the first, truly engaging content and services provider will open up such a massively fungible advertising platform, but there's still a lot of room for providers to gain a competitive advantage by simply opening up to this medium, without the ads.

Speaking of mobile content delivery, you can now subscribe to my updates using Viigo -- just click on the link on the sidebar under 'Updates Your Way.'

Why I love Twitter & Introducing Twitter Airlines

Twitter is everyone's favorite whipping boy when it comes to 2.0. "I don't get it" or "It's useless" or "It's trite" -- and I am certainly guilty of some of this thinking myself.

In defense, I point you to Joshua Porter's 'Opaque Value Problem'. Technological 'value' can only be measured by the needs of a single individual. And as Jeremiah Owyang has said, if done correctly, Twitter functions more like a chat room than a stream of disconnected thoughts. In business school, we'd call this 'network effects'. Lately, I've been following more and more people in the social media/web development arena whose opinions and foresight I greatly value. I have definitely learned a good deal, and have had the opportunity to actually engage in conversations with them. (and I'm just a d-list web personality at best)

Case in point, today I started ranting about what kind of airline I wish existed. Complaining about air travel is like complaining about Chicago winters -- its one of those collective ills. It seems like airlines have been reduced to the same level of customer service as a Greyhound bus. My snitter was going crazy with replies (snitter is a desktop app that accesses twitter -- so far, it's been pretty reliable). From my one, almost random complaint, emerged an entire wish-list of services/features for our perfect airline, and I'll share it with you:

At fictional Twitter Airlines, we offer:

• all flights with absolutely no children under 12 (arbitrary but ideal)
• free wifi access
• but no mobile calling service (cell phones have ruined enough, haven't they? controversial, maybe)
• movies & tv on demand -- and normal headphone jacks
• no barriers to using your miles (we made em up, you earned em, why would we stop you??)
• opportunities to earn more miles (did you show up early? buy food or drinks? used us multiple times in one month?)
• on time service, and greater communication about possible delays (on a recent flight, Southwest waited until 30 minutes before a flight to notify me of a 2 hour delay -- even though the delay originated much much earlier)
• if we're delayed or we have to cancel a flight, we'll do our best to immediately negotiate you onto other airlines and flights
• real leg room, real elbow room, and real bathrooms -- having no first class section will help out -- every seat is in first class!
• customer service -- no, not just the little booth with the people that are obviously trying to avoid you as quickly as possible -- use your phone/laptop in the terminal to immediately connect with a customer service person that can serve you
• actual food and beverage service -- you can even order those chicken strips from the Chili's in the terminal from us up to 30 minutes before your flight so you don't have to wait in line
• the kind of respect and trust you should receive from a company that values your patronage

Anything to add? to subtract? Would you pay a premium for these services? How much of a premium? 20%? 30%? 100%?

Companies are already on Twitter, with their ear to stream and there's a lot they can learn, but there's even more to be gained by active participation. As a fellow twitter-er put it, "glad you're taking notes. Any airline that's taking notes as well will do well."

What is something you've learned from using Twitter?

Rant: Target, Rounders, and Facebook

Oh, kids -- they're an attractive demographic, pretty good at making sneakers, AND an excellent stumbling block for most companies and their poor advertising campaigns.

Exhibit A: Target, and their Rounders campaign on Facebook

The Breakdown: Target gave freebies and large discounts to kids who promoted Target on the site and on the Facebook Group page. Members of the Rounder group were told to "keep it like a secret" from other users. One member felt this was wrong, wrote a paper for college, and her professor posted the info on her blog.

The Idiocy: The driving factor in word of mouth marketing is trust. Receivers have to believe that the source of information is trustworthy -- and not "ad-like" -- and blowback can be deadly. The damage from this type of outright deception can be much worse than simple negative feedback from a customer.

The Lesson: There are no well-kept "secrets" online -- especially in communities, especially regarding massive companies. Target, you were literally asking people to lie for you. People love Target, I know, I've tried going to Target and its always over-run with happy, smiling, excited customers. Asking customers to write about you is fine, but lying about why they're doing it ... that isn't acceptable on the social web, and this is just one more cautionary tale to prove it.

Besides, you're muddying the data. Feedback, whether its positive or negative, is valuable. By handing out cookies, and saying "say something nice about us," you're not taking advantage of the power of a simple conversation. Look, we're smarter than you think. When we see a page with nothing but celebratory comments, we know it's bullshit. But when we see honest feedback and engaged customer service reps, we see proof of a company that is customer oriented.

Creativity Annual Awards - Gold Winner, Passion2Publish.com

I don't like to toot my horn -- I just let other people do it for me.

The Creativity Annual Awards gave me the Gold Award for Passion2Publish.com. I'm quite proud of this little blog and everything it has done for me. I can't tell you how much this process itself has accelerated my understanding of digital media, analytics, and outreach.

About The Creativity Awards
Created in conjunction with the pioneering and prestigious Art Direction magazine, the Creativity Awards Annual was one of the first books to showcase leading-edge design not just from New York, but from across America and all points of the globe.

Hopefully now I can get away with getting caught twittering or blogging a few more times a day.

Sharing is Caring: Hot Links for Tuesday - Tweens, WOM, and Hillary Clinton

I was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday -- blame the cold and the rain and my southern blood -- so I wanted to offer up some great posts that accumulated in my Reader this morning:

From YPulse (a growing favorite of mine) -- some stats on tween (8-12 year olds) mobile usage and more, here are a few takeaways:

• 35% of tweens own a mobile phone
• 20% of tweens have used text messaging
• 21% of tweens have used ring & answer tones

Why is it that all I can think of is that I'll never again be able to enjoy a movie in a theater [especially without Alamo Drafthouse] ... I'm old.

Only about 5% of tweens actually use their mobile devices to connect to the internet -- but watch that number explode in the near future -- and mostly through games, which is the number one activity of tweens online.

Next up, via, in case you weren't already "Duh" about the power of product reviews/recommendations: (from a Kelsey Group survey)

• More than 3/4 of users believe reviews were very influential in their purchase decision
• Consumers generally valued other consumers’ reviews more than professional reviews
• Purchasers reported a willingness to pay at least 20% more for a service rated “Exceptional – 5 star” vs. a “4 star” rating
• 30% to 40% of review driven purchasers said they would NOT purchase from a service business with a 1 star rating
• 62% of consumers said they write reviews to help other consumers
• 24% said that they wrote reviews to “get back” at a provider after a poor experience
• 30% wrote reviews because they were asked to do so
• 19% wrote reviews because of some financial incentive (money, coffee cards, other)

From a WebVisible study, customer's motivations for writing an online review :

• Had a negative experience: 45%
• Had a positive experience: 39.5%
• Mixed experience: 15.5%

The real take-away for me is the aspect of online reputation management and outreach for my clients. Users are more motivated by negative experiences -- and other users definitely listen to bad reviews. I'm not sure how the study arrived at the 20% price increase for a 5-star review vs a 4-star review, but that definitely validates what we do. The post has even more quality stats, so go check it out.

Other items of interest:

• I got a comment that my posts are too long. If you can't stand me in full sentences, follow me on twitter.
• Technorati redesigns ... Techcrunch had to clue me in, I didn't notice.
• Kraft singles gets a myspace page. No. No. No ...
• Good idea, bad execution -- Hillary's Attack-regrator

Rant: Starbucks, Pass the Cheer, and It's Red Again

Via AdRants:

Starbucks is resurrecting their "Pass the Cheer" campaign and the It's Red Again microsite.

About the campaign:

Starbucks kicks off the holidays Pay it Forward-style by disseminating cheer on chilly city streets. Baristas hand out movie tickets and other small gifts on the condition that the recipient has to do something nice for someone else.

The campaign includes a "cheer pass" that tracks how far the "chain of cheer" has gone. Participants are encouraged to visit It's Red Again to share holiday stories and create greetings. The site is hosted by an awkward-looking man who personifies Starbucks' quirky intellectual vibe. It's also ridden with clever recommendations about holiday coffee blends and seasonal cakes.

About measurement:

CEO Jim Donald says they're interested in the qualitative results of the campaign and admits there aren't any of the usual tracking methods attached to it.

Ok.. I get it. I get the objective -- let's take this company that seems a little monolithic, big guy crushes little guy, and inject a little human emotion, a little goodwill, a little, "hey, we're here with you on this cold street with you, and we sorta care."

But you are a big company --  a really big company. And when it comes to doing good (like superman), use that size to your advantage to actually make a real and measurable difference in the world and don't commit dollars that you could use to not raise my drink another 9 cents just to blow on some feel good campaign.

How about each region/city picking a charity, or a specific village in Africa, and saying, "we're going to commit to at least this much cash to supply clean drinking water/AIDS medicine (or whatever -- the world isn't short on maladies) -- and on Dec 23rd, if you order a coffee, we'll take 100% of that money and use it to help someone out, because we're big and we'd hope that if everyone was this big, they'd do something real about making the world a little better. " Then when the customer orders their coffee, give them a pass that logs them onto a site where they can track the progress of the project -- to keep Starbucks in check -- oh and while they're on the site, they can see how their region/city is doing compared to others and they can also see related charities in the country's region that they can give additional support to. Starbucks could send out info and photos to the baristas about the progress of the project and they can relate back to interested customers.

I know shopping for charity gets lambasted, but its about putting the opportunity in front of people. I'd like to do more, but I'm running around putting out fires, and I forget. I shouldn't, but I do. But when I'm stuck in the airport for 12 hours and there's a GAP right there that I have to walk in front of just to see the departure's screen, I get bored, walk in, see the tag on the shirt, buy a few and give them out to friends. There's a Starbucks on every corner, and I was born in the city, Houston, where there are actually Starbucks on opposing corners. That's a lot of opportunities for them to use their size to do more.

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You may be asking yourself, "What is this rant doing here?"   -- Well, I'm getting frustrated by all of the feaux-social campaigns out there and when I get frustrated I write. Let me know what you think? Good? Bad? Indifferent?

 

What Seesmic is Missing and What it Needs to Win

Today I got my invite for Seesmic. What's Seesmic? Well, you're supposed to think of it as the video equivalent of twitter, but for now it's a place for you and lots of other people to upload short videos -- mostly of yourself, fumbling to talk about anything over than yourself (it's hard):

Seesmic is in 'pre-alpha' which is a new one for me, but so far the features that are available have worked well.

Once I got my invite, from Julia Patricia Roy, queen of the internets and wearer of awesome hair (I promised her I would say she is awesome, and give a good compliment about her hair if she invited me), I scrambled to get my first 'Smic' online. (I'm copywriting that phrase, and just in case, the verb forms as well -- smic, smict, smuc't? needs some work)

I could have used one of our cameras here, but instead opted for my cell phone -- which led me down the path of having to upload the video to youtube and then over to seesmic. But first, I got to try out many of the webs online video editing sites, such as jumpcuts by yahoo, or Eyespot (here's the top list of video editing sites by techcrunch).

Video sites such as this seem to be the v.c.'s hot topic right now, but there are definitely some obstacles to overcome before Seesmic or any others can become a robust community/sexy investment. We've already seen that the explosive growth of Youtube seemed to have more to do with clips people saw offline and followed on than the community by itself. Community propelled growth, but right now Seesmic has no functionality to relate users or content to one another.

If Seesmic wants to foster robust community, it needs to succeed in the following ways:

• Scanning -- I can scan text, but I can't scan videos, yet. As users, we need to do be able to scour information or videos more quickly, or spend less time viewing non-relevant content. Seesmic can do this in various ways, including 1) tagging videos by the author and by the community, 2) adding geographic data to the videos, 3) creating deep profile systems that better relate users and tools like twitter blocks, 4) complete text transcripts and mathematical content relationships.. anyone want to take that task on? It's a doozy.
• Sharing -- As Joshua Porter points out, the way to achieve those 'elephant math' like numbers is to be incredibly smart about how you build content sharing capabilities.
• Gaming --Building upon sites like ImInLikeWithYou and their use of point driven participation and gaming (dating as gaming, as Josh Spear says). Seesmic or others could take this type of activity on -- points for uploads, points for sharing, points for creating games (where the questions and answers are in video-format), and points for winning games -- in order to build a participation crazed community.

What do you think?

What do sites like Seesmic need to do in order to succeed?

Should I stick to straight text-blogging? Better equipment? Something worthwhile to say?

The Single Tenet of a Community Manager

Jeremiah Owyang -- one of the biggest movers and shakers in web strategy, whom I sometimes refer to as Jeremiah to appear important myself, culled together 16 actual job descriptions for an online community manager.

He distilled the job down to four essential tenets:

1) Community Advocate -- "the community managers’ primary role is to represent the customer"
2) Brand Evangelist -- "the community manager will promote events, products and upgrades to customers by using traditional marketing tactics and conversational discussions"
3) Savvy Communication Skills, Shapes Editorial -- "The community manager should first be very familiar with the tools of communication, from forums, to blogs, to podcasts, to twitter, and then understand the language and jargon that is used in the community"
4) Gathers Community Input for Future Products and Services -- "Perhaps the most strategic of all tenets, community managers are responsible for gathering the requirements of the community in a responsible way and presenting it to product teams."

Now before I give my input, I'll point out that the second way you can appear more important than you may actually be (remember, the first one was to name drop) is to find some way to disagree with a talking head.

But I do disagree with Jeremiah, even for reasons beyond growing my own self importance. I think Jeremiah is putting too much on the shoulders of a community manager -- in fact, these four tenets could really be called the four essential tenets of a customer facing company.

I think a community manager should subscribe to one and only one essential tenet -- increasing customer efficacy.

I don't think a community manager should be a brand evangelist or a marketing mouth piece. At the start, the community manager should be product agnostic until that community has been able to shape that product. I know, that sounds dangerous -- but a community manager should never tell a lie, even a lie well disguised -- and no company recruiting a community manager that I've seen has that kind of unbeatable product. The goal of an organization should be to plug their customers into the production process as early as conceivable -- through the work of the community manager.

But I don't think that editorial shaping and requirements gathering alone creates the kind of relationship we want from our customers -- and I'm certain it doesn't offer the type of relationship our customers will come to expect.

When I say customer efficacy, what I mean, at the very core of it, is that every customer should feel that their patronage changes the business, that they're uniqueness contributes to the uniqueness of the brand, that every thing that emerges from the assembly line (literal or figurative) was crafted with them in mind. The star of the show isn't the community manager -- its the customer. In turn, the customer becomes the marketing mouthpiece, the customer starts to help shape the editorial, and the customer gathers the requirements. Companies are looking to hire someone they have the control over -- but if you're looking for a fruitful relationship, you'll hire someone that the community will control. 

It's a great article, and a fantastic resource -- go read Jeremiah's full post.

It's Statistics Tuesday! Teen Shopping & Multimedia Usage

A couple posts caught my eye today in the ol' Google Reader and I thought I'd share:

From Search Engine Guide on Multimedia Usage:

• Most Web users watch online video today. In fact, 1 in 5 say they stream video every day. (Source: Pew Internet)
• Americans don’t get their news from static print sources anymore. Only 13 percent say they get their news from newspapers and magazines, compared to 40 percent who use the Internet and 32 percent who watch TV. (Source: Zogby)
• The media has a high demand for video content. Use of video by newspaper Web sites is expected to double over the next 12 months. (Source: Borrell Associates)

And Jennifer's reasons to integrate multimedia content were dead-on:

• Increased search presence -- video is a great way to break into universal search
• Stronger sales pitch -- some products just need to be seen, not described (iphone)
• Portability -- let your users have something they can walk away with and show off
• You spark the conversation -- capitalize on the strong communities at sites like flickr and youtube

And from Ypulse -- an excellent source of youth marketing resources, comes some teen retail shopping figures just in time for black friday:

Where do they learn about new products?

The web (65 percent)
Friends (62 percent)
TV commercials (54 percent)

We know they're headed to the malls (95 percent), but which stores are they going to?

Electronics (46 percent)
Bath & body (45 percent)
Music (surprise. surprise.) (41 percent)

Who gets the most of teens' hard earned money? ($100 or more)

Their sweetie (28 percent)
Mom and dad (20 percent)
Grandma and grandpa (18 percent)

What do they want most?

Money! (39 percent)
Laptop or desktop computer (30 percent)
Clothes (25 percent)
A new car! (24 percent)

If they could ask for just one gift, it would be:

Laptop/desktop computer (15 percent)
Money (12 percent)
Car (11 percent)

And as for the brands they want?

When specifically asked about brands, Apple was the most cited brand in the music technology category, Dell was ranked #1 for computers/laptops, the Motorola RAZR phone led the mobile phone category, and Microsoft’s X-Box 360 was the leading video game console, while Halo 3 was the leading video game. Abercrombie and Fitch was the clothing brand most teens say they want and when it comes to cars, Ford and Cheverolet brands were most cited.

Anastasia is quick to point out that teens are still brick-and-mortar shoppers because of the lack of credit cards and the social aspect of shopping.

Wow. I can't believe there was a period of time when I actually liked going to the mall ...