Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 216

Millennials Will Crush Our Economy?

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 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 to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Millennials... apparently, they are really going to be messing with our economy. The car industry hasn't built or done marketing to this segment in forever. Why? Because millennials don't buy cars. They Uber or they use ZipCar, because they figured out that this is a more economical way to get around (yes, this means they don't buy other components of what moves the automotive sector forward as much as other groups did). Now, they're destroying banks, because they have no interest in home ownership and other services. So, what does the future hold in a world of Airbnb and Uber? This could get scary.
Speaking of Uber, how are the taxi companies dealing with this? Are they handling it well? I don't think so. This is disruption...
App of the week: Moleskine Timepage.  

Listen here...

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Millenials Will Crush Our Economy?

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 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 to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Millenials... apparently, they are really going to be messing with our economy. The car industry hasn't built or done marketing to this segment in forever. Why? Because millenials don't buy cars. They Uber or they use ZipCar, because they figured out that this is a more economical way to get around (yes, this means they don't buy other components of what moves the automotive sector forward as much as other groups did). Now, they're destroying banks, because they have no interest in home ownership and other services. So, what does the future hold in a world of Airbnb and Uber? This could get scary.
Speaking of Uber, how are the taxi companies dealing with this? Are they handling it well? I don't think so. This is disruption...
App of the week: Moleskine Timepage.  

Listen here...

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airbnb

chom 977 fm

chom fm

ctrl alt delete

ctrl alt delete with mitch joel

digital media

facebook

guest contributor

heather backman

millennials

moleskin

moleskin timepage

montreal radio

morning show

mornings rock with terry and heather b

radio segment

radio station

social media

soundcloud

technology

terry dimonte

uber

video

viral video

youtube

zipcar

Disrupting Digital Business

Episode #464 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

R "Ray" Wang is the Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research.  He's also the author of the popular business strategy and technology blog, A Software Insider's Point of View. His blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and new business models such as digital transformation impact brands, enterprises, and organizations. His new book, Disrupting Digital Business, provides insights on why over fifty percent of the Fortune 500 have been merged, acquired, gone bankrupt, or fallen off the list since 2000. Digital disruption is bigger than most ever expected. 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 #464.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #258

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 (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), 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:

Artist Richard Prince makes $90,000 selling someone else's Instagram picture - The Sydney Morning Herald . "Andy Warhol had nothing on this guy. Also? I'm in the wrong line of work." (Alistair for Hugh).
Mr. Rogers Introduces Kids to Experimental Electronic Music by Bruce Haack & Esther Nelson - Open Culture . "I'm headed to Mutek, a big electronic music event in Montreal, this week. Here's Mr. Rogers, from before I was born, playing with a homemade synth." (Alistair for Mitch).
Exporting your visits - Cooper Hewitt Labs . "Probably the most tech savvy museum in the world is Cooper Hewitt, where pal, Aaron Straup-Cope (formerly of the original Flickr team), is involved in all sorts of very cool projects reconfiguring the museum's collection into digital objects. The latest awesomeness from Cooper-Hewitt is: the ability to 'export your visits' as a little stand-alone, static website." (Hugh for Alistair).
Chicken Grows Face of Dinosaur - BBC . "Every once in a while I read an article and think... yes, the future is going to be very different from today." (Hugh for Mitch).
Wouldn't It Be Nice? - The New Yorker . "Is there a chance that we don't wind up using technology to create some kind of artificial intelligence that then turns on humanity, enslaves us all and then systematically destroys our species? If you watch TV, movies or whatever, it feels like an inevitable future. We're doomed! Well, what if we're all wrong? Maybe technology will actually make us nice and better and we'll thrive? Read on..." (Mitch for Alistair).
The Kindle Finally Gets Typography That Doesn't Suck - Fast Company . "Everyone who is a font nerd or a book worm will tell you that our current slate of fonts (as beautiful as they are) were probably never conceived to best applied to reading on a Kindle. Well, things are going to change. Amazon has built a font from the ground up. It's called, Bookerly, and this typeface was created specifically to optimize the e-reading experience. That's pretty cool." (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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alistair croll

amazon

andy warhol

bbc

bit current

bit north

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bookerly

bruce haack

complete web monitoring

cooper hewitt

cooper hewitt labs

esther nelson

fast co design

fast company

flickr

gigaom

hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

instagram

kindle

lean analytics

librivox

link bait

link exchange

link sharing

managing bandwidth

mr rogers

mutek

open culture

press books

richard prince

social media

solve for interesting

sydney morning herald

the new yorker

year one labs

Do The Kind Thing

How do you want it? Cheap, fast and great. Fine, but you can only choose two of those things.

It's one of those famous business lines. You can't have it all... or can you? Daniel Lubetzky wanted to create a snack that was both tasty and healthy, convenient and wholesome, in a company that is both economically sustainable and socially impactful. Crazy? A long shot? Over a decade later, KIND has done it. They have an "and" business philosophy to challenge commonly held assumptions. This thinking has created one of the fastest growing healthy snacks business in North America. Most recently, Lubetzsky took part in a conversation at Google to discuss his business philosophy and leadership, which has also been tuned into a bestselling business book called, Do The KIND Thing. In a strange twist of fate, I first sampled these delicious KIND bars, while visiting the Googleplex many years ago... and I was hooked. KIND's business wasn't always sweet and filled with treats. It's an amazing story about leadership, vision, positioning and hard work. Something we all need to think that much more about.

Do The KIND Thing - In conversation with CEO and founder, Daniel Lubetzky. 

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Where Consumers Spend Their Time Is Where Advertisers Should Spend Their Money

This was the argument that was debated over twenty years ago.

Why do we have to keep having the same argument? We love dogma, don't we? Yesterday, Mary Meeker (from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers) did her thing. And, "her thing" is one of the most important (and highly anticipated) reports on Internet trends. She brings it forth every year, and every year there is always tons of data that points to what consumers are doing and the huge gap between what they're doing and how businesses are adapting (hint: it's digital, baby!). Personally, I have been following her reports since the very early days, and use them as a compass for how to directionally adjust the function of Mirum, and how to better serve our clients. In the early days of this report, I remember thinking to myself that as these trends become more and more pervasive, and as the data becomes more widely accepted, that the information provided within it would diminish in value, because the gap between what users are doing and how businesses are connecting would shrink.

That is wrong.

There were two pieces of data from the Internet Trends 2015 presentation that need to be highlighted:

1. Mobile data usage rose 69 percent last year, and 55 percent of mobile data traffic is from video.

This may seem obvious, but the implications are astonishing. For years, companies like Cisco (and others who analyze the plumbing of the Internet) have said that once we get to the point that video can be delivered cheaply, in high definition and streaming across the network, that this would be the real moment of convergence. A true inflection point. The point in time when video content can be as easily served on a smartphone, as it is to your desktop cable box in your den. Well, we're almost there. The one caveat, of course, is that data is still expensive, but that continues to adjust and will become cheaper and cheaper.

2. The mobile ad industry is still short $25 billion. Mobile commands 24 percent of time spent with media but accounts for only 8 percent of ad dollars spent. 

If I had hair... it would be on fire. We had the exact same thing happen in the early days of the Web. We saw this massive shift of consumers, time spent on the Web and the advertising dollars were not shifting at all. History repeats itself and, sadly, brands are failing to learn from their mistakes. Here it is... in cold, hard and plain facts. One quarter of a consumer's time is spent on mobile, but only eight percent of all advertising dollars are placed where they are. Now, it's easy to say that mobile advertising is not as sophisticated, powerful or even effective as television, print... or whatever. Still, there is a need for brands to do two things: reach the mass or reach the mass within their very unique niche. The equality of time spent and the media push towards it deserves an equalization.

The only thing holding brands back today is dogma.

There is no other way to explain it. Brands were so slow to adopt the Web as a media channel and raw business opportunity, that we're close to two decades in and they are still struggling with what we, at Mirum, call digital transformation. Now, this. The data doesn't lie. The usage - as well all know - is only going to increase in this area. Look no further than where the venture capital money is going. Look no further than where any significant investments are being done in the marketing space (it's in technology, in case you were wondering). This data is not going to change course. It's not going backwards. It's going to increase. In fact, if I may be so bold, it is the data points of mobile time spent and the level of traffic that is going to eat everything. The technology and connectivity is going to get so much faster, better and cheaper that the idea of plugging something into a wall for connectivity will seem barbaric... or even having to have that content delivered over anything but the air. The idea that any device is not connected to the Internet will seem ridiculous. It is what it is.

The big question: when will brands learn?

2015 Internet Trends Report from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

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The Line Being Drawn Between Smartphones And Tablets

Human beings are an intriguing group.

What does advertising do? Well, if you believe the very first episode of the very first season of the acclaimed television show, Mad Men, the answer is simple: happiness. Advertising sells the notion of happiness. Use this, buy that and be happy. That's the purpose. That's it. Love it or hate it. Maybe things were simpler back in those days. Maybe they've changed so dramatically over the past two decades, because of how much technology and new media channels have disrupted the broadcasting model. It would be (somewhat) easy to defend either side in a public debate. Still, it's hard to argue that making an ad connect, create value and, ultimately, create a point of conversion is getting increasingly more complex.

How many screens are there and how complex is the new marketing mix?

In my second business book, CTRL ALT Delete (which came out in a trade paperback version earlier this month), I make the argument that we no longer live in the three screen world (TV, computer and mobile devices), but rather a one screen world. The spin, in simplistic terms, is that the consumer chooses. The only screen that matters to them is the screen that is in front of them. Screens are everyone, they are cheap (or getting cheaper), they are connected and they are able to be interacted with. This, coupled with the context of how and where the consumer is, creates a different dynamic for marketers and advertisers. On one hand, the brand messaging has be consistent as they multi-platform and multi-action seamlessly through these cycles of screens. On the other hand, each type of consumer engagement is being done with a different mindset (not just consumption), and must be treated differently. In fact, it's harder and harder to define what, exactly, "mobile" means.

Are consumers in a fixed location or on the go?

Even that kind of simplistic approach can be problematic. How many times have you found yourself lying in bed at home for hours on end flicking around on an iPad? So, you're on a mobile device, but you're in a fixed location that would be no different from the good old days of being lumped in front of the TV on your couch in the living room. So, if the confusion is real... and it is, do marketers need to be super-slicing their ad budgets to be reflective of this complexity, or are they better off creating two lines of budgets that can be delineated between when a consumer is passive with media or active with their media (another core thought that I delve much deeper into in CTRL ALT Delete).

The one screen world requires a one screen ad budget approach. 

That was my initial prognosis. That prognosis could be wrong, if you ask brand marketing executives. This morning, AdWeek published an article titled, Redefining Mobile: Smartphones, Tablets Increasingly Have Separate Ad Budgets. If you're like me, it's the kind of headline that you have to stop and read twice. It's also the kind of headline that could leave you scratching your head in wonder. Here's the common thought that the average consumer might say when asked about the difference between their smartphone and their tablets: one is just a bigger version of the other. I enjoy consumption more on the bigger screen (or even working on it). Truth? Not so sure. The smartphone giants are creating smartphones with bigger and better screens. This is forcing a new kind of behaviour, where people no longer want to lug around their tablets. That's right, tablets could quickly become as "fixed" as those desktop PCs that you have collecting dust in that strange room you have labelled as your "home office," even though the entire house is wi-fi enabled... and you can work from your sundeck as easily as you can from the bathroom.

According to the AdWeek article: 

"Most people agree regular tablet use has declined among on-the-go consumers compared to one or two years ago. Research shows that people increasingly use their tablets at home. And worldwide tablet shipments fell 3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014, the first decline since the devices hit the market in 2010. When people do take them out in public, it's often to entertain a child during car rides or to watch shows on Hulu or Netflix during a trip. They're typically not shopping in Target or Walmart with an iPad in hand or watching video on their Microsoft Surface in between meetings--they're doing that on their phones instead."

So, just how different is the tablet from the smartphone when it comes to marketing?

A fascinating consumer behavior that not enough brands are paying attention to... but they should. If this is true, perhaps we are in transition. A place where most mobile ads are really about creating an impression, but as the screens grow and the usage adapts to it (which does include the actually usability and functionality) we will see a dramatic change in what advertising can do when you hop from the smallest of screens to the bigger ones. When you need to use only one hand to manipulate the screen instead of two. Regardless, this idea that tablets are not just bigger versions of smartphones, and that smartphones are getting bigger with more robust capabilities must be studied, tested and optimized for brands.

If we don't, we're going to continue to debate the baseline value of simply advertising on these devices, and that would be a tragic mistake.

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The Importance Of Viral Videos... Or Not

Every Monday morning at 7:10 am, I am a guest contributor on CHOM 97.7 FM radio broadcasting out of Montreal (home base). It's not a long segment - about 5 to 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 to SoundCloud, if you're interested in hearing more of me blathering away. I'm really excited about this opportunity, because this is the radio station that I grew up on listening to, and it really is a fun treat to be invited to the Mornings Rock with Terry and Heather B. morning show. The segment is called, CTRL ALT Delete with Mitch Joel.

This week we discussed:

Do viral videos still have any value to brands and businesses? We live in a world where videos get million of views one day and disappear within a few hours. It used to be that viral videos took time to have any traction. Now, in the real-time world of the "now," what is the half-life and the value of it? Also, isn't it strange how videos that went viral a few years ago, can now make a comeback in places like Facebook and, suddenly, it has a second life.
You will never leave Facebook... ever again. Last week, the online social network launched something called, Instant Articles, which allows publishers like the New York Times, National Geographic, and the Atlantic to not just have an article attached with a link to a piece, but to embed and design their articles directly on Facebook. This is a contentious issue. While it seems good for users, the publishers are now trapped on Facebook. Facebook keeps the reader, the data and everything else. All the publisher really gets is access to an audience. This is strange, if you consider that the publisher's historical power was always the ability to deliver an audience to an advertiser. Confused? You should be! 
App of the week: The Great Suspender for Google Chrome browsers.

Listen here...

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The Minimal Viable Brand

Episode #463 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Mirum Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

If you look at Silicon Valley, there is this notion that advertising is dead, marketing no longer works and everything is about finding these young unicorns who can leverage data and analytics to growth hack a company to success. This shores up into two thoughts: One, build it and they will come (because the product is so great). Two, growth hacking enables a business to not care about the brand, but simply focus on acquiring users. Any marketing professional knows that this is not the case. Brands matter more than ever. Denise Lee Yohn wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review titled, Start-Ups Need a Minimum Viable Brand. She is also the author of, What Great Brands Do - The Seven Brand-Building Principles That Separate The Best From The Rest, is a former Sony Electronics executive and advertising agency professional (who worked on Burger King, Land Rover and Unilever). So, what is the minimal viable brand that a business needs? 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 #463.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #257

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 (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, Solve For Interesting, the author of Complete Web Monitoring, Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks and Lean Analytics), 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:

The Six Best Tips From 'On Writing Well' - James Altucher . "I absolutely adored this book; Zinsser passed away recently, and I don't think anyone's ever written about writing better. It's doubly hard; your audience is scrutinizing your every word, hoping to catch you out. Yet Zinsser prevails, and even now, as I write this, I'm feeling his stern, caring gaze worrying over every word." (Alistair for Hugh).
Simulated Worlds Will Soon Be Indistinguishable From Reality - Motherboard . "What if virtual worlds are indistinguishable from real ones? The tech for simulations is getting better and better, and soon, we'll be able to lose ourselves in them. That has some pretty significant ethical and social consequences--most simulations could be better than our real worlds. Or maybe... we're already in one." (Alistair for Mitch).
The day when roads will harness solar energy is drawing near - Quartz . "As a kid I spent much of my summers at a little cottage in the mountains in Quebec's Eastern Townships. I remember walking, barefoot, along the paved road by our house -- and how baking hot it was. Imagine if instead of baking feet & tires, and ruining the landscape, and interrupting turtle crossings, all those miles of roads we have were turned into giant solar energy arrays? There is something like 4million km of roads in the USA, which makes something like 20 billion square meters of potential solar arrays, which could generate about 20 billion kW of electricity... did I get my numbers right? Anyway, maybe Elon Musk will do it." (Hugh for Alistair). 
Sharing fast and slow: The psychological connection between how we think and how we spread news on social media - Nieman Lab . "This is an oldie (from 2013), but I hadn't seen it. It's about two different kinds of information, and how the brain processes it... called here fast & slow (after Daniel Kahneman's work). The article highlights research on how different kinds of information are shared and interacted with online, and the kinds of things that cause that interaction." (Hugh for Mitch).
Patagonia's Anti-Growth Strategy - The New Yorker . "What if growth wasn't the only metric that mattered when it came to business? What if a great business was all about creating things that people not only want to use, but that can be used for a long, long time. Quality. The kind of stuff that we buy and that can get passed down to future generations. Imagine how comforting it would be for your daughter to eventually wear that spring jacket that you wore (and worked in) for decades. It just feels like dad, doesn't it? Laughable? Silly thinking? Patagonia is thinking very differently about what success means in business. Personally (and selfishly), it would be nice to have them as a client." (Mitch for Alistair).
The Bookstore Built by Jeff Kinney, the 'Wimpy Kid' - The New York Times . "We need more people like this. People who do not want the physical book to die... or the bookstores in which they are housed. There is still romance in bookstores and in books. There are still people (like me), who can't walk past a book store (used, independent or massive chain) without walking in and doing a dead tree graze. Maybe the world needs more people like Jeff Kinney. Maybe the world needs more people like Hugh, Alistair and I... the kind of folks who like to go out, roam the bookstores and, actually buy some stuff there." (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:

alistair croll

amazon

bit current

bit north

book a futurists manifesto

complete web monitoring

daniel kahneman

diary of a wimpy kid

elon musk

gigaom

hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

james altucher

jeff kinney

lean analytics

librivox

link bait

link exchange

link sharing

managing bandwidth

motherboard

nieman lab

on writing well

patagonia

press books

quartz

social media

solve for interesting

the new york times

the new yorker

vice

william zinsser

year one labs