Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 298

Why I'm Proud To Be A Dummy

A true story...

The other week, I was on a busy flight out to the West Coast. It was a cold, winter's day on the east coast and as the plane started to board, the flight attendants were already making announcements about how crowded this flight would be and where to best stow our cabin luggage. I'm one of the fortunate few that was upgraded to business class. Being able to board first, sit down, make oneself comfortable and get ready for the six hour journey makes the long flight that much more tolerable. As people were attempting to stuff their winter jacket's away and power down their smartphones, I spotted a well-dressed business executive one row ahead in the aisle seat reading one of those For Dummies guides. You know the ones I am talking about. They make them for everything these days. From Social Media Metrics For Dummies to Weight Loss Surgery Cookbook For Dummies (and everything in between). It seems like our world is full of dummies. I couldn't make out the title, but the form factor of the physical book and the yellow and black design of the cover was a dead giveaway. I felt somewhat embarrassed for this individual. On one hand, good for them for having the self-confidence to read a For Dummies book in public. On the other hand, I couldn't help but wonder what passengers would think as they walked by this person. Who reads a For Dummies guide in public? After decades of being in the workforce, this was my first encounter with one of these books out, in the wild... as it were.

That story was a lie.

I made that story up. The truth is that I have never, ever, seen an individual reading a For Dummies book out in public. And yet, these books have sold millions and millions of copies over the years and is one of Wiley's most popular and lucrative publishing imprints. In fact, I own a ton of these books and often find myself buying more and more as topics of interest come to mind. That trip out west that I described above? True story. I was in Las Vegas speaking at the New Media Expo. As I was wandering through the tradeshow floor, I noticed a Wiley booth where they were selling books. They had many of the For Dummies guides on hand as well. As I was scoping the bookshelves, I came across Scrivener For Dummies. It stopped me dead in my tracks. Scrivener is a word processing software specifically designed to help writers put their books together. After writing my upcoming book, CTRL ALT Delete with it, I have no idea how I wrote my first book, Six Pixels of Separation, on Microsoft's Word. If I ever run into someone working on a book, my first question is usually, "are you writing it with Scrivener?" As someone who didn't have the time or resources to dig deep into what Scrivener could really do, I watched a quick video tutorial and went at it. Now that book number two is off to the publisher's, I had made a note to myself to familiarize myself better with the software. Scrivener For Dummies came into my zeitgeist at just the right moment.

Don't be a dummy. 

As I was speaking to the Wiley professionals manning the booth at New Media Expo, I begun talking about all of the scenarios that I find myself in where their For Dummies guides have been helpful to me (as if I was attempting to justify why I was buying a book that most people think are just for dummies). It occurred to me, that over the years, the For Dummies guides have been an integral part of learning and development (along with everything from blogs and podcasts to more traditional business books and trade publications). I'm often asked by individuals where they can go to acquire specific skills and knowledge about a unique topic in the new media landscape. More often than not, the For Dummies guides are the best place to start. When I am asked to speak on a specific topic or give a more formal training session, I always refer to the For Dummies guide's table of contents on the topic to ensure that I have not left out some core components. When a question comes up in a meeting about a unique feature or function of a specific type of technology or area of interest, I usually defer to my For Dummies guide when Google fails to deliver a substantive answer (which is more often than one might imagine).

This is no infomercial.

Don't worry, this is not a case of native advertising gone wrong. While the good folks at Wiley often offer me complimentary copies of their trade publications, I'm probably buying four times the value of those books for friends and business peers when I'm asked about information on a varying array of topics. The Scrivener For Dummies book is sitting right here on my desk as I type out this column, and acts as a reference book as I manicure and stress over another long-form piece of content that I'm nursing. And, while I would probably never take one of these books with me on a flight, this book series has been my default destination to either get-to-know a topic or ensure that I have covered all of the bases. So, while they're obviously not the coolest books to trotting around (wouldn't you much rather be seen reading Malcolm Gladwell or Susan Cain?), perhaps the time has come to change all of that and embrace the fact that we're all dummies about something. Because sometimes, the best media hack is to go back to a trusted and simple book that covers all of the basics in a way that a bunch of random articles or video tutorials on YouTube (from people whose level of experience is hard to quantify) can never fully satisfy.

Dummies unite!

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker. 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:

The Huffington Post - Why I'm Proud to Be a Dummy.

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Three New(ish) Trends In Digital Media

Life after Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube ? Can't imagine it, can you?

There are a handful of new social media tools, channels and applications that could be giving way to newer ways in which consumers connect. Not just to one another, but to brands as well. One thing is becoming increasingly clear, startups are coming up with new and fascinating things to do with technology and it is making its way into a newer way to think about how we're all connected. Here are three new(ish) tools as a bellwether towards new(ish) thinking:

Cleanse. According to The Next Web article, FaceWash helps you remove profanities from your Facebook profile, FaceWash is like like the soap that your parents used to stick into your mouth when you said something naughty as a kid. Only, with FaceWash, your mouth is Facebook and the soap (FaceWash) will clean up not only your bad language but those that have posted on your timeline as well. As the search and the social graph becomes an area of focus for Facebook, "FaceWash finds and helps you remove profanities from your Facebook profile. After connecting your Facebook account, the site scans comments posted on your wall, photos you're tagged in, photos you've posted, links you've liked, status updates and more for offensive content. Everything from 'xxx' to 'butt' will be flagged, and you can then find and delete offending posts if you are so inclined. In case you're looking out for something specific, the app also features a search bar for finding any post containing a specified term," according to the article. The ability to manage and cleanse your social media profile is going to continue to be an area of importance for consumers as they both mature and better understand the ramifications of their ability to be a media channel unto themselves. Pushing this trend forward will be the increase in influence marketing. Areas like Klout and tools of social scoring will drive the need for consumers to have tools like FaceWash to help them better manage their online personas as they blur ever-closer to their physical lives.

Match Game. Doing something online and then moving it into the physical world is blurring at an increasingly faster pace. There is a new dating app called Tinder, that is capturing a lot of attention. According to the Business Insider article, There Is Now A Socially Acceptable Way To Call Someone Ugly Or Attractive, And It's Sweeping College Campuses: "It's more or less a socially acceptable, mobile version of Hot or Not. If you saw The Social Network , you might remember 'Face Mash,' the product Mark Zuckerberg made before Facebook. It takes people's photos and lets other people quickly say if they find the person attractive or unattractive. But Tinder is Hot or Not or Face Mash with a purpose. Instead of rating people for cruel amusement, it helps you find single people you're attracted to in your area. If you're attracted to them, and they're attracted to you, both parties are notified. If one of you is attracted and the other isn't, neither is notified. And of course, if both parties don't' find each other attractive, they both go on their ways, never knowing what the other thinks." This power of this trend could lead to search losing a little bit of its traditional steam as contextual content is matched with location and immediacy. While Tinder may only be the tip of the iceberg, just thinking about the ability to leverage location and mobile with a level of user-directed context will open up a whole new industry within the digital media sphere.

Impermanence. Snapchat  continues to grow in popularity. Snapchat allows users to send each other photos that are only viewable for a short period of time and then destroyed. Like a message sent from IMF to field agents in Mission: Impossible, the content self-destructs. You can read more about this trend here: The Impermanent Internet, but it seems like more and more people don't need the Internet and their mobile devices to be like elephants (remembering everything). They could very well live happily ever after with tools that allow them to stay connected without leaving a trail or hogging up space on a hard drive somewhere. While many are pointing to Snapchat as the leader in this newfound interest in impermanence, this trend has been growing since streaming services like Netflix and Spotify have entered the fray. More and more consumers want content, but they don't necessarily feel the need to store it and keep it. Simply having access to it when needed (and gone when not) is serving a powerful purpose.

There are more.

The buzz around stuff like "big data," "wearable technology" and more continues to grow as well. There is no doubt that more disruption is on the way, but what marked the above trends is how different they are from the social Web as we imagined it only a few years ago. The idea that people will go back and scrub their online social media ways or choose context and location over taking the time to do a deep search and ponder the results, coupled with a desire to have a very impermanent form of communication runs counter-cyclical to what many of the major media pundits had forecasted. There is no question, that these same pundits got a lot of their thinking right, but it's more interesting to see what we, cumulatively, as a society seem to latch on to and hold dear.

What are some of the newer trends that have surprised you?

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What Mark Zuckerberg Knows

Episode #341 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

My first thought, when I heard about the book, Think Like Zuck by Ekaterina Walter, was, "wow, I can't believe Mark Zuckerberg actally let someone inside his domain to study him and write a book about it!" I had a true sense of excitement over this business book. It turns out that Ekaterina Walter not only didn't have that kind of privileged access, but never even interviewed him for the book. Before you skip this episode or think that the book title is misleading, take a deep breath and dive on in. Walter is a social innovator at Intel. She is a regular contributor to Mashable, Fast Company, Huffington Post, and other publications. Along with that, she spent a long while researching not only Zuckerberg but his management style. If you're at all interested in thinking about modern day leadership in a different way or wonder about the future of Facebook, I think you will enjoy this 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 Twist Image Podcast #341.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #135

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, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks, LibriVox, iambik) and I decided that every week or so 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:

Hell is my own book tour - Salon . " Adam Mansbach , he of the Go The Fuck To Sleep , is on tour, promoting his new book, Rage Is Back . The bottom line: book tours are awkward, ill-advised forays into manufactured celebrity. This cut close to the bone for Ben Yoskovitz and I, because we just sent our book, Lean Analytics, to production, and we're gearing up for a few months of speaking gigs around the world. Hopefully more than four people show up." (Alistair for Hugh).

Shut Up and Be Funny! - Distilled . "In my experience, people who really know their stuff are funny. They're not worried about 'losing their thread' and going off topic, because they're confident they can return to it. The same is true of brands: when you know where home base is, you can cavort a bit. 'Think Old Spice are glad they chose to take a risk and be funny? Does anyone remember what Dos Equis were doing before ' The Most Interesting Man '? This post from distilled says plenty: just shut up and be funny. Of course, everyone wants the lift of virality, but it's hard to achieve. Here's where the resistance towards humour comes from, and how to overcome it." (Alistair for Mitch).

Aaron Swartz's Politics - Naked Capitalism . "Reams have been written about the death of programmer and public domain activist Aaron Swartz , who faced federal prosecution for downloading a few million academic journal articles. This is the article that had the biggest impact on me. In it, you can see the kind of impact Aaron had already had on the world, and you can imagine how much more he could have done. We lost a great one." (Hugh for Alistair).  

Corporate Profits Soar as Executives Attack Obama Policy - Bloomberg BusinessWeek . "If you read or watch certain media outlets in the US, you might think that President Obama is the reincarnation of Leon Trotsky . If you look at the numbers, you might think otherwise: since Obama entered the White House, US corporate profits have grown by 171%, and are now higher compared to the size of the economy than at any time since record-keeping began in 1947. I can't say I believe in the Illuminati, but man, when I look at this kind of data, I can't help but think the fix is in." (Hugh for Mitch).

Scientists Work To Unravel Mystery Behind Woman Who Doesn't Grow - Singularity Hub . "In a world that is enraptured with things like Lance Armstrong doping or the first set of ratings from the new season of American Idol are missing something much bigger. Namely: real news items that should capture your attention and give you pause. This is one those stories. We all think that we're all so unique and individual, when in reality, we're all quite similar. Then, something, somewhere goes wonky during conception or pregnancy - something minor - and this sort of thing happens (that has a major impact). As science continues to advance, we're mostly solving the medical and science challenges that affect a lot of people. In reality, there are many stories like this of rare diseases and conditions. How we solve them and the resources that we put against figuring them out is going to define who we are as a humanity." (Mitch for Alistair).

Is the book a crucial cultural artifact, or just an outdated container for content? - Paid Content . "Hugh, I know how much you love the 'what is a book?' debate, so I could not resist. Our friend, Mathew Ingram , spent some time dueling this notion over with none other than Nick Carr and Clay Shirky . To say that it's an enjoyable read about books and publishing would be an understatement. The net result? Well, you're going to read the article to find out, but make no mistake about it: we're all grappling with a world where words are simply text, and video is simply video. It's getting harder and harder to define things like books, magazines, movies, TV show and more." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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ben yoskovitz

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gigaom

go the fuck to sleep

hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

lance armstrong

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leon trotsky

librivox

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The Empty Cup Strategy

A fictional situation (that is all too real)...

Imagine this: you have an amazing day at work. A big project got completed, you were called out in terms of your excellence and other moments of pride and distinction from your peers ensue. You can't wait to get home and share the news with your family. You walk through the door, smiling from ear and ear and you're suddenly ambushed by kids fighting, and a spouse who has spent the day cleaning snot and separating the rug rats. Those two dramatically disparate emotional sides usually leads into some kind of argument or moments of frustration. It's a story that unfolds - in one way, shape or form - multiple times a day all over the world.

The problem.

We approach each new scenario with the emotions and experiences that are spilling over from our last scenario (and the ones before that). Prior to Twist Image, I held a job where I was editing a local community publication, writing freelance on the side and coaching close quarter combatives. As I would go through my day - inching ever closer to my time in the gym - I would have some great training sessions and some brutal ones. At one point, I was trying my best to figure out where the lack of consistency was coming from, so I spoke with my coach (Tony Blauer). After some back and forth, it became clear that I was brining my daily luggage into the gym. If my mind was wandering to the stuff that had happened prior to walking through the doors, it was very hard to advance, stay focused and (to be frank), not get punched in the face repeatedly. Not fun. As we all know, when it comes to any form of physical activity, focus (along with proper training) is core. Back then, I was equally fascinated with literature about martial arts. That literature, which was also laced freely with Eastern philosophy, would often talk about "emptying the cup."

A powerful lesson in learning, growing and focus.

Spend a week emptying your cup before each and every new scenario you encounter at work. If you had a rough conference call with a client, don't drag that emotion into a creative brainstorm. If your boss was tough on you, don't take it out on a fellow team member on a status report. Seems obvious enough, doesn't it? Still, nobody's perfect and we don't do this often enough. This year - like every year - I will be attending the TED conference in Long Beach. It happens at the end of February and this is always a hectic time at Twist Image. Once the cab driver drops me off at the airport prior to my flight out West, I always stop in the airport lounge, find a quiet corner and sip on some tea. I use that moment to cleanse myself, to reframe my life and to empty my cup (in this case it's literal and metaphorical). I do everything within my power to enter the week of TED, empty, available and ready for anything. Not carrying any preconceived emotions, not bringing any business or personal issues along for the ride. It's not easy, but it's something to focus on. Two years ago, after a particularly motivating TED conference, I dedicated myself to adding more and more moments of emptying the cup into my life. It started with the transitions between work, community work and home life, and it's edging closer (with a lot of hard work) to daily transitions between meetings and interactions with people.

I am learning a lot. You can too.

The process of the empty cup strategy has been enlightening. It's not just about being better at relationships, it has been an integral part of my personal development and education. I not only learn so much more about myself and others, but I'm better able to always put myself in the mindframe of being "the constant student." If my cup is empty, it's an opportunity to grown, learn and think without bringing in my own personal history and experience - which can often cloud my ability to be truly open and, in the moment. Just imagine - for a moment - that this type of thinking was pervasive throughout your organization (from the c-suite down to the admin staff). What could customer service look like? What could your meetings look like?

What about you? What's your empty cup strategy?

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Bring Your Brain To Work Day

There's a line that has been marinating in my brain for close to a year now.

One of the speakers at the TED 2012 conference in Long Beach was Jim Stengel. Stengel is a legend (of sorts) in the marketing industry as the former global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble. When he left the organization in 2008, Stengel went into the consulting side of the business along with becoming an adjunct professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In 2011, he published his first business book, Grow - How Ideals Power Growth And Profit At The World's Greatest Companies. In his presentation, Stengel said, "we don't bring our whole brain to work." It gave me pause.

Do you bring your whole brain to work?

This blog tends to focus on thinking that is outside of the box. It could be anything from a new, shiny bright object to an entirely new way to think about the work that we do, but we're still often stuck inside the box. The majority of us work in a department with a hierarchy that dictates the rules of engagement. As a marketing agency, this is further complex due to the dynamics and politics of working side by side with clients (who have their own boxes, departments, org charts and more). While the majority of us would like to think that, "of course, I bring my whole brain to work!," it would be wise to stop and ponder if that's really true. Are you the true self that stares into the dark in the darkest of nights before you fall asleep or are you the expectation of what your job description is in your day to day work?

I often don't bring my whole brain to work.

While collaboration seems to be the work trend of the past decade, it seems to me that collaboration isn't a facilitator in bringing your whole brain to work. For my dollar (and definition), collaboration is when departments and individuals of different levels within those departments work with other departments and peers to solve a problem. Does that role truly engender a place where people are able to bring their whole brain to work? Looking out on to the horizon, having an environment that embraces a state of multi-disciplinary work may bring us to the point where all of us can truly bring our whole brain to work. If your role is in the accounting department, but you have the opportunity to be a part of the strategy team (or, at least, give your input there because you have experience... or an idea), this is where the rubber will meet the road (or, where the brain gets to fully engage in the work). All too often, ideas, collaborators and co-conspirators are dismissed because they are "not from us." No, I do not want the bookkeeper performing knee surgery on me, but I would like to know if the graphic designer has a technical solution to share because after the office is closed, she's been spending the last twelve months learning how to program over at Codeacademy.

Raise your hand.

It's done to us, but we do it to ourselves. The action of raising our hand or asking a question should not be seen as an act of subordination, nor should it be seen as carte blanche to question everything. We live in both interesting and dynamic times. The most successful people that I know don't have a career that matches the myriad of job descriptions that we all see online and in newspapers. The most successful people that I know add value through their multi-disciplinary skills. Stengel is right, sadly. The majority of us don't bring our whole brains to works. For some of us, it has been beaten out of us. Other have been told it's not welcome. Some don't even know how to fire the other synapses that they're not using. It's a tragedy. It starts with you. It starts with me. We have to raise our hands. We have to add to the perspective. We have to let it be known that we are not merely a perfect match for our job descriptions, but have a much deeper care and understanding of the industry that we serve. This is what true leaders - at every level - do.

So, before you head out for the weekend, think about how much of your brain you actually do bring to work. Now, start thinking about how to bring that much more of it in on Monday.

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The Ambiguous Brand

Branding is no longer a zero-sum game.

Back in my music journalism days, I had the chance to interview Gene Simmons from KISS on several occasions. It was always an "experience," and he always spouted off quotable little sound bytes about rock n' roll, the lifestyle and the people who like and connect with KISS. In short, Simmons frowned on apathy. He would often say that people either hate KISS with all of their heart, or that they love the band with all of their heart. In short, we were either a member of the KISS Army or a cadaver on the battlefield, as far as he was concerned. It was an important life lesson for this young and impressionable entrepreneur. You know the saying, "you can't please everyone..." 

Brands try to please everyone.

This is not a political rant, but brands serve the community with platitudes and apologies more than anyone else. Sure, there are a few indie and fringe brands that don't cater the masses, and yes there are brands that know who their ideal consumer is (and they're not trying to placate to the rest of the population), but - in general terms - brands like to have one, clean uniformed message.

Is the brand - as we have known it - all but gone in this day and age?

Lance Armstrong came clean tonight on Oprah's TV network, OWN (sort of... it's hard to tell when a self-admitted liar is suddenly not lying). Did he do it? Didn't he do it? I'm less interested in what Armstrong had to say and that much more interested in the time and sentiment around public forgiveness. At what point, do we all move on and get back to the Lance Armstrong who was both a hero and champion of finding a cure for Cancer through his Livestrong foundation? Is that kind of comeback even possible? Will an apology (or admission) do the trick? Regardless, people have already either passed judgment or are over-looking his indiscretions because of the awareness and change he has brought to ending this deadly disease. There is a big question here: did Armstrong's brand take a hit from which it can never recover from or have we changed - as a society - and we will accept the humanness of his choices and accept him for the flawed individual that he is... that we all are?

This is not about Lance Armstrong.

This blog post is not about Lance Armstrong or any other celebrity who has fallen from grace. It's not about an airline that broke someone's guitar, and it's not about a computer company that didn't care about the service one of its customers was getting. This is a blog post about brands becoming more human - because of our connected society - and how we have all changed and become somewhat ambiguous about the brands that serve us. In doing so, brands have become ambiguous as well. Brands (like humans) are flawed, they make mistakes, they apologize... and we all move on. That's a change in the temperament of branding. We don't have one, long enduring feeling anymore. Brands have their ups and downs and we go along for the ride.

The Superman barrelchest.

Brands used to be bigger than life. They were managed by us mere mortals. Now, brands have taken on a much more dynamic range of emotions. Brands used to be perfect, because they controlled the message to be perfect. Now, we're more accepting and tolerant of brands - warts and all. And, in thinking about brands becoming ambiguous brands, it leads me to wonder if this dismisses their ability to command the same level of power that they used to command? Why is this important? Another powerful emotion of humanity is forgiveness. So, brands have become mortal. They will be forgiven, so from one context to another we have these brands that morph, shift and don't have that same foundation of steadfast dominance.

Something to ponder for the brands that still believe in the command and control model.

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The Permanent Brand

Have you ever read a book about branding?

When you study the art of branding, any good book on the subject will - at some point early on - turn to the neologism of the word "branding" in terms of marketing and communications. Inevitably, there is some quaint reference to cows being branding with a hot iron stick as an identifier. Because branding is all about leaving a mark (emotional, physical, you name it). An impression. A feeling. A sentiment. We live in a day and age when people not only tattoo their bodies with brands (everything from corporate logos like Harley Davidson and Budweiser to Apple and the rock band KISS), but have what Kevin Roberts (CEO Worldwide of the advertising agency, Saatchi & Saatchi) dubbed a "Lovemark" (a brand that delivers, "loyalty beyond reason"). If you have ever waited in line for an Apple product, you know what this means.

The unreasonable penchant of being attached to something.  

There is no doubt that great advertising can inspire us to do more. To be more. There are only a handful of brands that have truly transcended traditional advertising to become iconic embodiments of our zeitgeist. Whether it was the inspiration of Nike's simple sentiment of, "just do it" for the mass majority to get up off of the couch, put the Doritos down and take on some form of daily exercise, or Apple's ability to encourage us to "think different" by using technology to help us create and connect more to a greater society. It wasn't just about sneakers or computers after those ads hit the airwaves, it was about becoming something more. What happens when brands can create something more than an advertisement to sell, engage and connect with consumers in a much deeper and more profound way? We are in the midst of this discovery, and while the line-ups may not be that much more significant at the tattoo parlor, it's clear that consumers are lining up to get more personal, connected and have a moment-by-moment connection to a brand. Something more permanent. It's something that few brands could have done without a multi-million dollar advertising campaign, but now it's coming down to technology, social media, big data and utilitarianism marketing.

The age of the permanent brand.

"When did you hit your goal?" The question was asked more times that I could count last week in Las Vegas while attending a conference. They were talking about their NikeFuel goals, of course. It seems like people everywhere have traded in their Livestrong yellow wristbands for Nike's latest innovation, the Nike+ FuelBand. Much has already been written about the technology and gamification of an active lifestyle that Nike delivers with this hybrid of watch, accelerometer, online social network, and digital physical activity drill sergeant. So, if you're not meeting your pre-defined physical activity for a day, expect your wristband to blink you into action or face the shame of having your feeble points posted to your Facebook timeline. What's even more fascinating is how there, on your wrist, each and every waking (and sleeping) moment lives the Nike brand. It becomes even more a part of you then when you slip on your swoosh-emblazoned runners for your daily jog. The brand is permanently there, jolting you into action, applauding your accomplishments and branding you for all eternity.

The next generation of the connected appliance.  

While Samsung was busy debuting their T9000 refrigerator at CES that features an-iPad like, connected screen built in to the fridge that can serve up recipes based on what's inside or allow you to use Evernote to create a communal shopping list with the family (lest we forget the Unilever tie-in for coupons!), the true evolution of the connected appliance could well be something we wear (along with those things that make our toast and clean our dishes). Just last week, The New York Times, ran an article titled, At Disney Parks, a Bracelet Meant to Build Loyalty (and Sales), which gave consumers a first glance at the pending vacation management system called, MyMagic+. Guests at Disney will wear their MyMagic+ bracelet which will include everything from their credit card information and hotel room key to alerts for when it's their turn on a ride and being able to pre-select from the Web certain VIP experiences prior to travel that will be embedded in the MagicBand. All the while, Disney gets to track your every move: "MagicBands can also be encoded with all sorts of personal details, allowing for more personalized interaction with Disney employees. Before, the employee playing Cinderella could say hello only in a general way. Now -- if parents opt in -- hidden sensors will read MagicBand data, providing information needed for a personalized greeting: 'Hi, Angie," the character might say without prompting. "I understand it's your birthday.'"  

Marketing towards the permanent brand.

Advertising is starting to feel slightly stale, isn't it? From branded apps on smartphones to connected appliances, we're now starting to see brands creep on to our bodies with robust and personalized technology that people not only don't seem to mind, but that they are generally enthused about. Consumers love having their Amazon Price Check app at the ready to ensure that they're getting the best price possible while at the store level and, in doing so, seem to have little issue with Amazon capturing all of this highly personal and usable data about retail, pricing and how we flow through a store for them to capitalize on. Privacy and hacking concerns notwithstanding, brands that have emotional connections with consumers will be doing everything they can (and more) to further deepen this direct relationship as technology, data and our inherent desire to be connected continues to blossom.

Are you starting to feel a little bit more like that cow being prodded with a hot iron stick? 

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for the Harvard Business Review . 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:

Harvard Business Review - The Wearable Brand, Tracking Your Every Move.

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Great Design Removes Technology

Pushing that idea further: great design removes technology. Great design removes all friction.

Here's my thinking: we have finally arrived at this magnificent moment in time when technology has removed the technology from technology. No, that is not a typo. Go back and re-read that sentence again. Great design, strong user interface and better technology is making all of our devices simple to use. One button to turn them on, no instruction manuals required and devices that connect to a high speed network. This is beyond the Web-based Internet that we have come to love over the past two decades and this is quickly pushing out beyond our new-found love of smartphones and tablets. The burgeoning Internet of Things movements is hoping to network and connect all sorts of devices and appliances through sensors and other simple interfaces. We're starting to see this in products like the Nest thermostat, and you can rest assured that we'll soon have truly connected homes, offices, cars and more (even our bodies).

The connected society.

Bassett & Partners describes itself as "disruptive brand and design strategy experts who use ethnographic understanding of people to find original emotional insights." A marketing agency (with some similarities in terms of culture and approach to marketing to our agency, Twist Image), they've created an 18-minute documentary on how we touch, interact and connect with devices and brands called, Connecting. They describe it as: "a short film that explores trends in UI, Interaction, & Experience Design," but it is so much more.

Watch this...

Connecting (Full Film) from Bassett & Partners on Vimeo.

Another step in the ever-changing world of marketing and brands. What did you think of this short film?

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Flying High Again (With Seth Godin)

Episode #340 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Seth Godin is an institution. Normally, in this short paragraph, I do my best to introduce the guest on each episode of the podcast. It would be an insult to Seth Godin to even attempt to try that here. Instead, I'll refer you over to a blog post I wrote on April 26th, 2012 titled, Dear Seth Godin. Beyond Seth being a true inspiration and digital mentor to me, I was watching with bated breath his Kickstarter launch of The Icarus Deception (you can see the project here: The Icarus Deception on Kickstarter). We had many back-and-forths over email, but I was adamant about not having this conversation until after I read his latest business book from cover to cover. As soon as I was close enough, we connected and what you are about to hear is our chat about his latest book, his work and where he's going with everything. I also have three extra copies of The Icarus Deception that I am going to give away to the first three people who correctly answer in the comment section below the name of the musical artist that inspired the title of this podcast episode. 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 Twist Image Podcast #340.

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