Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 144
April 5, 2018
Chris Wood On This Month's Groove - The No Treble Podcast
Chris Wood is this month's conversation on Groove - The No Treble Podcast.
You can listen the new episode right here: Groove - The No Treble Podcast - Episode #40 - Chris Wood.
Who is Chris Wood?
Wikipedia can be funny sometimes. When you look for Chris Wood, he is listed as a "jazz musician" (this happens when there are multiple people with the same name). I wonder if Wood considers himself a jazz musician? Most know him as a founder, experimental player and musician visionary within the band Medeski Martin & Wood. Others may know him as the roots folk Americana bass player for The Wood Brothers (the band's latest, One Drop of Truth was recently released). Wood is, without a doubt, one of the more complex players to actually label. The sounds and compositions that he has recorded over his astonishing career are hard to really pin down. From double bass to electric. From using a drumstick as a slide on his standup, or inserting music notation paper behind the strings to create a "snare bass" soundscape, everything he does feels different and new... but still the bass. He's a personal favorite and inspiration to me, so it was a true honor to celebrate this 40th episode milestone of Groove - The No Treble Podcast with the one and only Chris Wood. Enjoy the conversation...
Listen in: Groove - The No Treble Podcast - Episode #40 - Chris Wood .
Groove - Episode #40: Chris Wood by No Treble
What is Groove - The No Treble Podcast?
This is an ambitious effort. This will be a fascinating conversation. Our goal at Groove is to build the largest oral history of bass players. Why Groove? Most of the content about the bass revolves around gear, playing techniques, and more technical chatter. For us, bassists are creative artists with stories to tell. They are a force to be reckon with. These are the stories and conversation that we will capture. To create this oral history of why these artists chose the bass, what their creative lives are like, and where inspiration can be found.
Tags:
acoustic bass
americana
bass
bass player
bass player podcast
bass podcast
bassist
chris wood
digital marketing
double bass
electric bass
electric bass podcast
folk
fretless bass
groove
groove no treble
groove no treble podcast
groove podcast
jazz
jazz musician
medeski martin and wood
mitch joel
mitchjoel
music podcast
musician
no treble
no treble podcast
one drop of truth
roots
six pixels of separation
the wood brothers
wikipedia
April 4, 2018
The Long Tales - The Best In Business Innovation Content - Issue #5
Welcome to the 5th edition of The Long Tales - the best in business innovation content.
The news is a mess. Business is a mess.
This is how most business professionals feel these days, isn't it? I'd like to think that I am both an optimist and someone who is opportunistic. Still, it's hard to not have a whiff pessimism with one quick glance of the news. Who knows where our consumer data really is? A leader of the free world is stripping down one of the biggest companies via Twitter (slicing billions from their market cap). A murderous rampage at YouTube. Spotify - which shows little chance of making money - opens big in their IPO. And, the week's about halfway done. With that, it feels like opportunity is abound. It does seem like brands can play a really solid role in pulling people together and building loyalty. What you will notice in the choice of this week's links is a theme: in the mess, there is opportunity. Which brands will roll up into a ball and head into their respective corners sobbing, and which brands will seize these opportunities and capitalize?
Here are some of this week's best in business innovation:
Can $26 Short Ribs Save Barnes & Noble? - Eater . Over this past holiday weekend, we visited family in Scarsdale, New York. Close by is one of the Barnes & Noble prototype stores that is being described in this Eater piece. I bought two books in this store. It's new. It's beautiful. There is a lot of space to soak in literature. The staff is helpful (and not pushy). When I was checking out at the register, the cashier asked me if I wanted to become a member of their loyalty program. "I'm Canadian," I said. They asked if I had eaten in their restaurant, Barnes & Noble Kitchen. I had (just not on this trip), and it was yummy. They said that it's too bad that this model store will not be rolled out into other stores. Apparently, even selling great food, and having a great restaurant experience was not selling more books. I left the store. It bothered me for the rest of the weekend. I kept hearing their voice in my head: "it's too bad that the Kitchen is not helping to sell more books." Is there a correlation? Is it possible that people are, simply, buying less physical books... and that has nothing to do with the food or how busy the store is now (it was VERY busy)? Then, I saw this article. Read on...
Beverage Company Califia Farms Publishes Branded Magazine 'Pour Over' - MediaPost . I believe in content marketing. I believe (deeply) in long-form content (can't you tell? Have you seen the name of this initiative?). In fact, there's nothing I like more than long-form niche content. So, welcome to Pour Over. It's a magazine with a focus on coffee culture and plant-based lifestyle. Unique? You bet. Niche? More than you might expect. All of this, brought to you by the nut-beverage and coffee company Califia Farms. And, by the looks of things, it's beautiful. Sit back, take a sip and imagine what your brand might be able to produce and publish. Read on...
The midlife of design - Five Fifty - McKinsey Quarterly . I'm sick of infographics. That's really not true. In order to be sick of them, you had to enjoy them in the first place. I never did. I'd look at an infographic and feel lost. Always. My brain... it no like it. One of the Mirum team members (thanks, Umar!) sent this one around. It's about design thinking and it's 50th anniversary (and you thought design thinking was something new?). It's an infographic. It almost lost me. Then... but then... glory. As you scroll down this infographic, it leads to other links. And that is what makes it great and beautiful and innovative content. You can spend a few minutes to see what the five most important things about design thinking are, or you can click through the links and dive deeper into each topic (which would take about fifty five minutes). That's why McKinsey calls this feature, Five Fifty. And, that's what suddenly makes an overused concept like infographics so super-innovative, valuable and smart. You want it quick? You want it fast? They've got you covered. You want it long? You want to spend some serious time with the topic? They've got you covered. Look (or Read) on...
It's time for an RSS revival - Wired . Hallelujah and Praise Be! Bring it back! I'm sure Wired will get all of the credit for this idea, but I've been writing and dreaming about the power of RSS... well, since RSS really started happening close to 15 years ago. I was insane, crazy in love with Google Reader and tried (desperately tried) to fall in love with Feedly. But, like many, my RSS reader withered on the vine. I was no longer proactively pulling specific feeds from thinkers and publishers that I love, but I was just foraging my content from my social media feeds (hint: follow really, really smart people, or this is can be a work hazard). Now, as we sit in the hot mess dumpster fire that is fake news, echo chambers and information that is hard to substantiate, I find myself paying for content... from publishers... mostly traditional publishers. That should tell you something. Now, I miss... really, really miss my Google Reader. So, what is RSS? Do we need it back? I'm in the "yes" camp... but that won't do much, when most people get their news from their friends who - for the most part - aren't all that media savvy. Read on...
Digital Identity Is Broken. Here's a Way to Fix It - The Wall Street Journal . Where is our true digital identity? Who controls it? How is it used and updated? It's not something we often think about... but we should. "... we need a new generation identity mechanism where credentials are issued by communities of people and businesses that know each other. Here, your entire community vouches for you, not a single bureaucracy or a single commercial player." How's about that for innovative thinking? Who can and who should build this platform? Which company? Will it work? Read on...
Now, go get busy making innovation happen today.
What is The Long Tales?
If you believe that spending time reading and listening to great longform business content is one of the most powerful ways for you to think about how your brand can better connect with consumers, this may be for you. As a known Infovore, I am astounded by the vast amount of content out there on the topic of business innovation. With that, I'm even more astounded at just how average the vast majority of this content is. On a regular basis, The Long Tales is my pet project as I curate and comment on what has been happening in the world of business innovation... and why you need to care.
Tags:
advertising
advertising agency
amazon
barnes and noble
barnes and noble kitchen
book
book publishing
book store
brand
branded content
branding
business blog
califia farms
coffee
content marketing
design
design thinking
digital identity
digital marketing
digital marketing agency
digital marketing blog
disruption
eater
echo chamber
facebook
fake news
feedly
five fifty
google
google reader
infographics
innovation
j walter thompson
jwt
link
long form content
loyalty
magazine
marketing
marketing agency
marketing blog
marketing innovation
marketing innovation content
marketing technology
martech
mckinsey
mckinsey quarterly
media
media literacy
mediapost
mirum
mirum agency
mirum agency blog
mirum blog
mirum canada
mirum in canada
mitch joel
mitchjoel
news feed
online community
pour over magazine
productivity
publishing
retail
retailer
rss
rss reader
six pixels of separation
social media
social media feed
storytelling
technology
the kitchen
the long tales
the wall street journal
wired
wpp
The Long Tales - The Best In Business Innovation Content - Issue #5
Welcome to the 5th edition of The Long Tales - the best in business innovation content.
The news is a mess. Business is a mess.
This is how most business professionals feel these days, isn't it? I'd like to think that I am both an optimist and someone who is opportunistic. Still, it's hard to not have a whiff pessimism with one quick glance of the news. Who knows where our consumer data really is? A leader of the free world is stripping down one of the biggest companies via Twitter (slicing billions from their market cap). A murderous rampage at YouTube. Spotify - which shows little chance of making money - opens big in their IPO. And, the week's about halfway done. With that, it feels like opportunity is abound. It does seem like brands can play a really solid role in pulling people together and building loyalty. What you will notice in the choice of this week's links is a theme: in the mess, there is opportunity. Which brands will roll up into a ball and head into their respective corners sobbing, and which brands will seize these opportunities and capitalize?
Here are some of this week's best in business innovation:
Can $26 Short Ribs Save Barnes & Noble? - Eater . Over this past holiday weekend, we visited family in Scarsdale, New York. Close by is one of the Barnes & Noble prototype stores that is being described in this Eater piece. I bought two books in this store. It's new. It's beautiful. There is a lot of space to soak in literature. The staff is helpful (and not pushy). When I was checking out at the register, the cashier asked me if I wanted to become a member of their loyalty program. "I'm Canadian," I said. They asked if I had eaten in their restaurant, Barnes & Noble Kitchen. I had (just not on this trip), and it was yummy. They said that it's too bad that this model store will not be rolled out into other stores. Apparently, even selling great food, and having a great restaurant experience was not selling more books. I left the store. It bothered me for the rest of the weekend. I kept hearing their voice in my head: "it's too bad that the Kitchen is not helping to sell more books." Is there a correlation? Is it possible that people are, simply, buying less physical books... and that has nothing to do with the food or how busy the store is now (it was VERY busy)? Then, I saw this article. Read on...
Beverage Company Califia Farms Publishes Branded Magazine 'Pour Over' - MediaPost . I believe in content marketing. I believe (deeply) in long-form content (can't you tell? Have you seen the name of this initiative?). In fact, there's nothing I like more than long-form niche content. So, welcome to Pour Over. It's a magazine with a focus on coffee culture and plant-based lifestyle. Unique? You bet. Niche? More than you might expect. All of this, brought to you by the nut-beverage and coffee company Califia Farms. And, by the looks of things, it's beautiful. Sit back, take a sip and imagine what your brand might be able to produce and publish. Read on...
The midlife of design - Five Fifty - McKinsey Quarterly . I'm sick of infographics. That's really not true. In order to be sick of them, you had to enjoy them in the first place. I never did. I'd look at an infographic and feel lost. Always. My brain... it no like it. One of the Mirum team members (thanks, Umar!) sent this one around. It's about design thinking and it's 50th anniversary (and you thought design thinking was something new?). It's an infographic. It almost lost me. Then... but then... glory. As you scroll down this infographic, it leads to other links. And that is what makes it great and beautiful and innovative content. You can spend a few minutes to see what the five most important things about design thinking are, or you can click through the links and dive deeper into each topic (which would take about fifty five minutes). That's why McKinsey calls this feature, Five Fifty. And, that's what suddenly makes an overused concept like infographics so super-innovative, valuable and smart. You want it quick? You want it fast? They've got you covered. You want it long? You want to spend some serious time with the topic? They've got you covered. Look (or Read) on...
It's time for an RSS revival - Wired . Hallelujah and Praise Be! Bring it back! I'm sure Wired will get all of the credit for this idea, but I've been writing and dreaming about the power of RSS... well, since RSS really started happening close to 15 years ago. I was insane, crazy in love with Google Reader and tried (desperately tried) to fall in love with Feedly. But, like many, my RSS reader withered on the vine. I was no longer proactively pulling specific feeds from thinkers and publishers that I love, but I was just foraging my content from my social media feeds (hint: follow really, really smart people, or this is can be a work hazard). Now, as we sit in the hot mess dumpster fire that is fake news, echo chambers and information that is hard to substantiate, I find myself paying for content... from publishers... mostly traditional publishers. That should tell you something. Now, I miss... really, really miss my Google Reader. So, what is RSS? Do we need it back? I'm in the "yes" camp... but that won't do much, when most people get their news from their friends who - for the most part - aren't all that media savvy. Read on...
Digital Identity Is Broken. Here's a Way to Fix It - The Wall Street Journal . Where is our true digital identity? Who controls it? How is it used and updated? It's not something we often think about... but we should. "... we need a new generation identity mechanism where credentials are issued by communities of people and businesses that know each other. Here, your entire community vouches for you, not a single bureaucracy or a single commercial player." How's about that for innovative thinking? Who can and who should build this platform? Which company? Will it work? Read on...
Now, go get busy making innovation happen today.
What is The Long Tales?
If you believe that spending time reading and listening to great longform business content is one of the most powerful ways for you to think about how your brand can better connect with consumers, this may be for you. As a known Infovore, I am astounded by the vast amount of content out there on the topic of business innovation. With that, I'm even more astounded at just how average the vast majority of this content is. On a regular basis, The Long Tales is my pet project as I curate and comment on what has been happening in the world of business innovation... and why you need to care.
Tags:
advertising
advertising agency
amazon
barnes and noble
barnes and noble kitchen
book
book publishing
book store
brand
branded content
branding
business blog
califia farms
coffee
content marketing
design
design thinking
digital identity
digital marketing
digital marketing agency
digital marketing blog
disruption
eater
echo chamber
facebook
fake news
feedly
five fifty
google
google reader
infographics
innovation
j walter thompson
jwt
link
long form content
loyalty
magazine
marketing
marketing agency
marketing blog
marketing innovation
marketing innovation content
marketing technology
martech
mckinsey
mckinsey quarterly
media
media literacy
mediapost
mirum
mirum agency
mirum agency blog
mirum blog
mirum canada
mirum in canada
mitch joel
mitchjoel
news feed
online community
pour over magazine
productivity
publishing
retail
retailer
rss
rss reader
six pixels of separation
social media
social media feed
storytelling
technology
the kitchen
the long tales
the wall street journal
wired
wpp
April 1, 2018
Limitless Possibilities With Laura Gassner Otting - This Week's Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast
Episode #612 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
Have you ever met someone, and you just connect? On everything. From the music you like to how you think about work... and family... and beyond. That's how it has been as Laura Gassner Otting and I have become friends in the past few years. Laura helps innovators, idealists, and iconoclasts get unstuck and achieve their best results. It's not just your standard motivation stuff... far from it. Through her business, Limitless Possibility, Laura collaborates with entrepreneurs and investors to push past the doubt and indecision that consign great ideas to limbo. She delivers strategic thinking, well-honed wisdom, and perspective informed by decades of navigating change across the start-up, nonprofit, political, and philanthropic landscapes. Laura served as a Presidential Appointee in Bill Clinton's White House, helping shape AmeriCorps. She left a leadership role at respected nonprofit search firm, Isaacson, Miller, to expand the startup ExecSearches.com and founded and ran the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group, which partnered with the full gamut of mission driven nonprofit executives - from start-up dreamers to scaling social entrepreneurs to global philanthropists. She is the author of Mission-Driven, a book for those moving from profit to purpose. She's an instigator, a motivator, a provocateur and someone you should pay attention to. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #612.
Tags:
advertising
advertising agency
advertising podcast
americorps
bill clinton
brand
business blog
business book
business conversation
business podcast
digital marketing
digital marketing agency
digital marketing blog
digital marketing podcast
disruption
entrepreneur
execsearches
iconoclast
innovation
innovator
investor
isaacson miller
j walter thompson
jwt
laura gasser otting
leadership book
leadership podcast
limitless possibility
management podcast
marketing
marketing agency
marketing blog
marketing podcast
mirum
mirum agency
mirum agency blog
mirum blog
mirum canada
mirum in canada
mission driven book
mitch joel
mitchjoel
motivational
non fiction book
non profit
non-profit search first
nonprofit professionals advisory group
philanthropy
podcast
politics
recruitment
six pixels of separation
social entrepreneur
startup
strategic thinking
white house
wpp
March 31, 2018
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #405
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO, Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? Turns out it's just chance.- MIT Technology Review . "The distribution of things we think matter for success -- intelligence, tenacity, and so on -- tend to fall on a bell curve (distributed around a mean). But the allocation of success, at least in terms of money, is a Pareto curve (a few people have a lot, a lot of people have a few.) Why is this? Turns out it's probably luck, despite the fortunate revising history to one where they're heroes. When people can seize on an opportunity, those to whom it falls do so, and succeed. Which means the best investment strategy may be to give money to everyone. In academic research, 'the strategy that delivers the best returns, it turns out, is to divide the funding equally among all researchers.' Which might be bleak news for Venture Capitalists -- but could be a silver lining for proponents of universal basic income." (Alistair for Hugh).
The Sound of Fear: Room40 boss Lawrence English on the history of noise as a weapon - Fact . "Came across this recently and thought of all the things you do with sound, Mitch. It's an interesting history of how sound has been used for power, from Biblical stories to overthrowing governments to interrogations. Must be weird, as a modern musician, to think about where your art winds up." (Alistair for Mitch).
John Coltrane Draws a Picture Illustrating the Mathematics of Music - Open Culture . "Fascinating insight into the genius of saxophonist and composer, John Coltrane." (Hugh for Alistair).
Montreal elementary nixes homework, encourages parents to read with kids instead - CBC . "I met a sweary South African once who made the best case I have ever heard about how crazy homework is for kids. (I will let you imagine the accent and swear words): 'Kids spend 8 or 9 hours a day in school. They are kids. How is it possible that they can't learn everything they need to learn in 8 hours? What are they doing all day? We don't expect adults to do 3 extra hours of work when they come home, why do we make 10-year-old kids do this?'" (Hugh for Mitch).
The very Unnerving existence of Teen Boss, a magazine for girls - The New Yorker . "Perhaps the very embodiment of the 'hustle' movement is this: a magazine that looks like your average teeny bopper rag, but with content all about how to become your own boss/entrepreneur. Welcome to Teen Bo$$. At first glance, I thought this was a classic parody piece. As I tried to lift my jaw from off the floor as this story unfolds, I began wondering: is this a bad idea or a great idea? Wow... what do you think? Should young teenage girls be exposed to stories like 'How To Make Quick Cash This Winter Break' in the same way that they're exposed to 'How To Make You Lipgloss Standout From The Crowd'... or are both gross?" (Mitch for Alistair).
Why Marvel has turned to podcasts to tell new superhero stories - The Drum . "Both Hugh and I are huge podcast nerds. It's how we met. And, we've been talking about this platform for well over a decade... and watching it evolve. This. This is what I like to see. Smart brand extension, a new use of the medium, and an exciting story to tell in a new way. I'm not sure if this is the future of podcasting, but it is smart, very smart, content marketing." (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
Tags:
advertising
advertising agency
alistair croll
brand
brand extension
business blog
cbc
content
content marketing
digital marketing
digital marketing agency
digital marketing blog
disruption
education
entrepreneur
facebook
fact
history
hustle
innovation
j walter thompson
john coltrane
jwt
lawrence english
link
link exchange
magazine
marketing
marketing agency
marketing blog
marvel
media
mirum
mirum agency
mirum agency blog
mirum blog
mirum canada
mirum in canada
mit technology review
mitch joel
mitchjoel
montreal
music
open culture
podcast
podcasting
room 40
six pixels of separation
solve for interesting
success
superhero
teen boss
teen magazine
teenagers
the new yorker
tilt the windmill
twitter
universal basic income
venture capital
wolverine
wpp
March 28, 2018
The Long Tales - The Best In Business Innovation Content - Issue #4
Welcome to the 4th edition of The Long Tales - the best in business innovation content.
At what price marketing?
The Facebook data harvesting story continues to grow. It doesn't seem like Silicon Valley and consumers are going to give Facebook a pass on this one. It also feels like there is a general sentiment of "enough is enough." As a marketing professional, I know what comes next: Government intervention and regulation. Classic. We do this to ourselves, don't we? It's not just marketers... but all brands. We innovate, create and disrupt, and then we get high on our own fumes. Instead of settling on a line in the sand that we (as brands) won't cross, we cross every line possible until someone steps in and says, "enough is enough." There's a lesson here. Not about how consumers need to understand their data and what they're giving away in exchange for free products and services, but how brands have (and will always have) an ability to self-police. Will they? When will they learn?
Here are some of this week's best in business innovation:
The #1 reason Facebook won't ever change - Om Malik . I know. I know. You are fatigued by all this Facebook and data news. You've read it all, haven't you? Well... just this one more and I promise to stop. Veteran tech writer and entrepreneur, Om Malik, puts some deep thought into what, exactly, is going on here. If you believe what I wrote above, that brands get high on their own fumes, you need to know what their drug of choice is. Are you surprised that Facebook continues to get caught up in these messes? After reading deep into Om's thinking, maybe the answer is simpler (and purer) than any of us thought? Read on...
How I Built This with Guy Raz - NPR . I'm getting tired of listening to Howard Stern on satellite radio. Don't get me wrong. I still consider him one of the best conversationalists of all time. I love his banter, and I really do think he hits his stride when going deep with celebrities. It's everything else. I'm not sure if he's coming to the end of his contract or what, but it feels like the vast majority of his morning airtime is spent building his team into their own celebrity. And, while it can be fun, I'm simply not connecting to those characters as much as I connect to Howard. So, I have been surfing the channels. I'm a huge fan of Sirius XM's new channel, Volume (which is talk radio solely focused on music), but I'm falling even harder for NPR in the morning. I first came across Guy Raz as the host of TED's radio content. This - his other show - How I Built This, is amazing. Guy sits down with entrepreneurs and gets their story. There's an innocence to his questioning, and I love how he jumps on top of something nuanced that the guest says that is... mesmerizing. It's not often that I find myself parked in car and listening to the end of a radio segment. These "driveway moments" happen a lot with How I Built This. Listen to them all. Listen on...
What are screens doing our eyes - and our ability to see? - Wired . The things we wonder about, but don't pay enough attention to. How often have you asked yourself, "is staring at these screens all day good for my eyes?" And then, within seconds, you're back at it. Even if you should take a break from all of these screens, can you? Isn't looking at screens - basically - what all/most of us do all day (for work and entertainment)? Let's not even think about kids and how this affects their development. What is the science? Is it true? Are we slowly going blind? Can we even avoid all of these screens? Well... Read on...
Why Reading Books Should be Your Priority, According to Science - Inc. "How do you come up with some many ideas?" Over the years, this has been - without a doubt - the number one question that I get asked in interviews and casual conversations. The answer is simple: I read. I don't just read online or articles or magazine. I read books. Lots and lots of books. I own many more books than I could ever read. I love books (in fact, I just bought three at the used bookstore). You should too. There is science behind it. Plus, it *might* just save those precious eyes of yours (if you read the article above). Want more? Want more success? Want more wealth? Want to be more intelligent? Read books. It works. It cures what ails you. Promise. Read on...
Now, go get busy making innovation happen today.
What is The Long Tales?
If you believe that spending time reading and listening to great longform business content is one of the most powerful ways for you to think about how your brand can better connect with consumers, this may be for you. As a known Infovore, I am astounded by the vast amount of content out there on the topic of business innovation. With that, I'm even more astounded at just how average the vast majority of this content is. On a regular basis, The Long Tales is my pet project as I curate and comment on what has been happening in the world of business innovation... and why you need to care.
Tags:
advertising
advertising agency
analytics
articles
book
book reading
book store
brand
branded content
branding
business blog
cambridge analytica
consumer
content marketing
creativity
data
data harvesting
digital marketing
digital marketing agency
digital marketing blog
disruption
entertainment
entrepreneur
facebook
guy raz
how i built this
howard stern
innovation
j walter thompson
journalism
journalist
jwt
macleans
magazine
marketer
marketing
marketing agency
marketing blog
marketing innovation
marketing innovation content
marketing professional
marketing technology
martech
media
mirum
mirum agency
mirum agency blog
mirum blog
mirum canada
mirum in canada
mitch joel
mitchjoel
music
npr
om malik
online privacy
podcast
privacy
radio
reading
regulation
satellite radio
science
screen
silicon valley
sirius xm
six pixels of separation
storytelling
success
technology
ted
ted radio
the long tales
venture capital
volume talk radio
wired
wpp
writer
March 26, 2018
The #DeleteFacebook Movement And More On This Week's CTRL ALT Delete Segment On CHOM 97.7 FM
Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 10 minutes every week - about everything that is happening in the world of technology and digital media. The good folks at CHOM 97.7 FM are posting these segments weekly on i Heart Radio, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away about what's going on in the digital world. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry DiMonte morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.
This week we discussed:
The Facebook data issue continues to cause problems. There has been a #DeleteFacebook movement and more. Do you think this makes sense? Is Facebook too "big too to fail"? Will ridding ourselves of Facebook make us happier? If "data is the new oil," is this Facebook accident the same as a massive oil spill?
Plus, my article on Facebook in Maclean's: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have just confirmed it: online privacy is dead.
Last week, Terry asked me if self-driving cars were actually out on the road. A day later, an Uber self-driving vehicle tragically killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona. Uber suspended their autonomous vehicle program for the time being. Is this a step backwards in the self-driving vehicle movement or a step forward, in terms of facing the reality that these machines will make deadly mistakes... but probably not as often as humans?
App of the Week: PepTalk Motivation.
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March 25, 2018
Peak Performance With Michael Veltri - This Week's Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast
Episode #611 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.
What a fascinating human being. Michael Veltri is a battle-hardened entrepreneur, bestselling author, and top rated business transformation keynote speaker. Recognizing that success - both organizationally and personally - are the culmination of our daily decisions, Veltri is focused on better decision-making practices. From ancient Japanese warriors to brain science, from business titans to academic research, Michael tapped wide-ranging resources to develop a groundbreaking model for better decision making. Surprisingly simple and eminently effective, his approach has impacted some of the world's most prolific organizations, brands, and leaders. This came together in his latest book, The Mushin Way To Peak Performance - The path to productivity, balance and success. Michael is also a cancer survivor, decorated Marine Corps veteran, and master-instructor in the Japanese martial art of Aikido. In short: he's incredibly inspiring. Enjoy the conversation...
You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast #611.
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March 24, 2018
Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #404
Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, Pandemonio, and ResolveTO, Author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik and co-author of Book: A Futurist's Manifesto) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".
Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:
Statistics Canada on GitHub. "I've been working more closely with the Federal government of Canada lately, in part because of a digital government conference I launched last year. It's been encouraging: For example, with Minister Marc Garneau, an astronaut, in charge of transportation, the department is really trying to understand emerging tech and ready itself for change. Another good sign: Statistics Canada published interactive charts on income, population, and occupation on Github, along with code and version history. It's one thing to be pro Open Data; it's another to deliver information along with the tools to analyze it. Click in a couple of times and play with the charts." (Alistair for Hugh).
Epic Games shows off amazing real-time digital human with Siren demo - Venture Beat . "When developers and designers try to make things look real, they stumble across what's known as the Uncanny Valley -- humans that look not quite real enough and creep us out. But tech is getting better; here's a video that looks almost perfect. The teeth are still a bit weird. More interestingly, this can be rigged up to an actor to record everything, rather than having to animate the virtual human. Within a couple of years, veracity will be a scarce commodity." (Alistair for Mitch).
I Made My Shed the Top Rated Restaurant On TripAdvisor - Vice . "Is it possible to game TripAdvisor (etc...) ratings? Here's how to get your restaurant rated #1 in London UK on TripAdvisor, even though your restaurant doesn't exist." (Hugh for Alistair).
Netflix Created a Clean, Custom Font That Could Save the Company Millions - AdWeek . "There are companies that design and license fonts, and in the web world, the licensing fees are often charged by impression. So, Netflix designed their own font. Here's the skinny." (Hugh for Mitch).
Virtual influencers - JWT Intelligence . "This caught my attention on our internal platform. As part of WPP and JWT, you get to see some cool stuff. Then, I realized that JWT Intelligence had shared this article externally. Kinda creepy. Kinda interesting. Influencers and influencer marketing is all the rage these days. Well, how about this? What if your influencer of choice isn't even a human? Does an influencer have to human to be cool AF?" (Mitch for Alistair).
Amazon considering buying brick and mortar Toys "R" Us locations - Axios . "Would this be the definition of irony? If it isn't, am I evil for wondering if this is a viable business tactic? Is it possible that Amazon decides, 'hey, we want to be in the toy business.' So they focus and focus on toys, and it winds up being a contributor to the demise of one of the largest toy retailers in the world. Then, instead of just watching that 800 pound gorilla fall, Amazon swoops in and pays a fraction of it's value for whatever is left? Silly? Not so sure..." (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
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March 23, 2018
Privacy Is Dead. Facebook and Cambridge Analytica Have Just Confirmed It.
Did Facebook hack the 2016 U.S. election?
No. Did it swing the result? Probably. Did it do it on purpose? No, not likely. But this past weekend, news reports bolster the view its data, which were not supposed to be shared, were central to the strategy of political consultants Cambridge Analytica to sway voters in favour of Donald Trump. What Facebook has actually done here is to confirm the death of privacy. You could make the case that Facebook is actually the victim here, after Cambridge Analytica weaponized someone else's academic survey data by blending it with other available consumer data to create rich profiles on the behaviours and activities of 50+ million American Facebook users and potential voters. But right now, many fingers are pointing at the firm and its CEO-founder Mark Zuckerberg. The news broke hard over the weekend and the fallout has been fevered and far-reaching, extending far beyond a slide in Facebook shares that took as much as a US$5-billion bite out of Zuckerberg's personal wealth in a matter of hours. The backlash includes calls for government inquiries or investigations in the U.S., EU and Britain, words of concern from the British prime minister and speculation that users could sign out of the social media giant's site for good due to concerns over data breaches and privacy threats. This may be the precise moment in time when we all acknowledge that privacy is officially gone. No one buys the Google mantra "Do no evil" anymore; even if social media companies aren't actively conspiring to eliminate privacy, they are complicit in its demise. Facebook may not have hacked an election, but nobody really knows where our data lives any more and who has access.
Who watches the watchers?
The question of oversight or regulation is one that consumers and brands must face when it comes to marketing and advertising on platforms like Facebook. It's one thing to help a company sell you its goods, but it's a whole new world to have the power to help anyone buy an election. About 50 million profiles were allegedly harvested to create content and target individuals with specific political messages. Using personal profile data, analytics, predictive software and algorithms, Cambridge Analytica, with investment from U.S. hedge fund billionaire, Robert Mercer, along with advisor Steve Bannon (from Breitbart and Donald Trump's election team) allegedly used our personal information (without explicit authorization) in 2014 to build a database that could target personalized political advertisements down to specific individuals.
It wasn't a data breach. Or was it?
It's easy to shake your first in the air and scream, "How could this happen?" The roots of this story seem innocuous enough. Back in 2014, Global Science Research's Aleksandr Kogan launched a personality quiz app on Facebook called thisisyourdigitallife to study human behaviour based on information that could be gleaned from Facebook. The app was downloaded by 270,000 Facebook users, who were paid a small sum to take a personality test (all good and fun). Depending on the users' privacy settings, GSR was able to gather not just information about the individual who downloaded the app, but (depending on the user's security settings) also gave GSR access to their "friends." This quickly scaled to the 50 million profiles that were also shared by GSR's data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica. Facebook was made aware of this in 2015, removed the app and demanded proof from GSK (and all other parties) that the data had been destroyed. Recently, Facebook was told that the data had not been deleted. Now, it's all one big hot mess. Facebook is currently attempting to confirm whether or not the data had been deleted. Cambridge Analytica claims that they did, in fact, delete it, when it became clear that the data was not obtained in line with Facebook's terms or service. Cambridge Analytica is denying the use of this data in relation to the Trump campaign. Now, a past employee of Cambridge Analytica, Christopher Wylie (a Vancouver-native), is doing the media circuit as a whistleblower. Both the New York Times and the The Guardian have been leading this past weekend's revelations.
Welcome to "surveillance capitalism"
The idea of "surveillance capitalism" was first introduced by John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney in Monthly Review, and later popularized by academic Shoshana Zuboff (according to Wikipedia). In short: Facebook's business model is not based on content, marketing or advertising. You -- the consumer -- are the product and the money that Facebook generates is based on how well they can monetize your data and target you to their brand partners. None of that should come as a surprise, but the Cambridge Analytica twist to this business model is not about knowing individuals and figuring out how to better position a brand in front of a consumer. This new model is about being able to leverage highly personalized information and psychological models to change the consumer's behaviour by showing them hyper-personalized content to sway their opinions. Of course, this is all being done without the consumer's consent and knowledge. And the weapon of choice was fake news, served up to appeal to unique profiles.
Do no evil. Do no harm.
While that is often the mantra of these Silicon Valley social media and Internet platforms, it's getting harder and harder for consumers to believe it. It's not just Facebook. Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon and others hold a treasure trove of personal information about consumers. If third-party players are able to run apps and programs across multiple platforms, seeing 50 million accounts being harvested on Facebook may wind up being the tip of the iceberg. Everyone is vulnerable. Facebook's VP & Deputy General Counsel, Paul Grewal, took to Facebook to update his post, Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook, with this on March 17th: "The claim that this is a data breach is completely false. Aleksandr Kogan requested and gained access to information from users who chose to sign up to his app, and everyone involved gave their consent. People knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked."
You will need to re-read that last paragraph a few times.
It's not about whether or not users knowingly provided their information. Users -- without a doubt -- were probably clueless that this app was taking much more from them than a personality quiz. It scraped their profiles and the profiles of their friends. So, while SCL may have "legally" used an app to access this information, it does not mean that they didn't do anything morally wrong, or that Facebook's "legal" terms of service at the time were not vulnerable.
Where do we go from here?
The true business challenge is that consumer's data is being used in myriad ways that they are not aware of. Consumers have little insight and recourse in understanding what data is held, how it is being used and where that data may be floating around. In all of this news about Cambridge Analytica, it is still unclear how much advertising revenue that company drove to Facebook. If consumers even did read the terms of service when signing up for a platform like Facebook, it is more than likely that they didn't keep abreast as these platforms change and adjust their terms of service. Is this strictly the user's fault if they're not staying apprised? Facebook and other social networks often allow third parties to connect with the consumer, and while this makes for a better user experience (you get ads for things you're interested in), we can't be certain that users understand how that data is sold and resold. What happens when many of these third party apps and companies go bankrupt? Are the consumer data assets being reused and resold? Do consumers have a right to know if that has happened and stop it?
Facebook, like you, is trying to stay ahead of this.
This Cambridge Analytica fiasco highlights some of the dynamic challenges that businesses face today. How can Facebook protect a businesses (and a user's) best interest? The truth is that Facebook knows way more than they need to know about their users in order to best target them with relevant content and advertising. While this current data imbroglio started playing out in 2015, why are most people only finding out about this now? Should every misuse of Facebook data be made readily available to the people whose data have been misused? These are all monstrously large ethical, legal and business questions that will need to answered and accounted for.
The better business question might be:
just how much data does a brand really need to ideally target a consumer with a relevant message? Does that mean that every byte of information after that point should never be in a place where it can be passed along or analyzed? Until Facebook and the other digital marketing data giants can prove that they can police themselves, brands have an incredible opportunity to step up, move forward and properly protect their consumers and the people that they want as new consumers.
Will the brands stand up and protect their customers?
The above posting is a column I wrote for Maclean's. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here: Facebook and Cambridge Analytica have just confirmed it: online privacy is dead.
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