Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 320

To Thine Own Self Be True

Who owns your brand?

I don't mean this in a "does you consumer now control the brand?" kind of way. I mean it in a, "where do people go to connect with your brand?" kind of way. I was flipping through an in-flight magazine yesterday and noticed a two-page spread for a diaper company. There was a massive call to action in the bottom right-hand corner of the print ad that said something like: "to lean more, please follow us on Facebook." I found myself asking a very simple question: "what is this brand of diapers doing on Facebook that is so unique to the brand experience that it can't be done on their own website?" The answer (after a quick review) is nothing. This brand's Facebook page isn't doing much to leverage the power of the social graph or use Facebook's functionality to extend the brand narrative in a unique way. They're just using Facebook as a place to have a less-interactive and less-branded website.

Why is it less-branded?

What's better: one clear message or five messages on the same page? When you have you own website, you control the amount of messaging and the engagement. When you have your brand page on Facebook (and I'm using Facebook as a euphemism for any online social network, be it Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn or whatever), your brand is housed within the Facebook branded experience and there could be ancillary brands (or advertisements, whatever) in the mix as well.

The tough question.

Brands have to start asking themselves one very tough question: are we on Facebook because it makes our brand experience better and leverages the power of these millions of connected people, or are we on Facebook, because there are a lot of people there and we have been unable to garner that level of attention with our own digital experiences and spaces? Facebook isn't bad. Facebook is great. But, Facebook is only great to the brands that people care about, and it's only great when those brands are already connected to their consumers and leverage the Facebook experience to do a whole lot more.

Brands are getting lazy.

It's not just brands, it's also the agencies that serve them. With each and every passing day, I'm seeing more and more brands forgo their own web and mobile experiences to use social media environments as their primary place to connect. Years ago, I cautioned against this. It became a more prescient concept when MySpace collapsed as Facebook began to gain its momentum. At the time, I had many of my musician friends suddenly lose their entire audience. Back then, it was much easier to build and update a MySpace page than it was to build and nurture a unique website. The problem is that when everyone started bailing on MySpace, the bands were left with little community. On top of that, they had no way to take the sweat equity (content, connections and more) to another platform. They didn't own it. MySpace did. When MySpace changed their rules, the bands were affected but couldn't do much about it. Same with Facebook: it's their playground and they can take their ball and go home whenever they want.

Today.

Today, more and more brands are doing the exact same thing. It doesn't matter if it's Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, Google + or whatever. They're allowing their brands to not only play second fiddle within the compounds of these online social networks, but they're selling their brands short with the shiny, bright objects du jour instead of looking out on to the horizon. Why is this such a big deal? We're seeing our world become more and more mobile. Facebook, Google and everyone else have yet to demonstrate how they're going to take their current connections of users and migrate them over to a mobile platform that is just as engaging and compelling as what we're seeing in the current browser-based format. What makes any brand (and agency) think that they're going to get this right? Immediately, any brand can create a new website in HTML5 and leverage responsive technology to develop a platform that is - at the very least - manageable across all devices and screens. At the same time, these same brands can spend as much time and money as they wish creating a better brand narrative - without the restrictions and limitations set out by any other digital media company.

Fear is the mindkiller.

It's just easier to play in someone else's sandbox, isn't it? Fear is holding everyone back. Unlimited creativity and opportunity is holding these brands back. It's a shame. A brand that can provide a true experience and extend that brand narrative by providing utility and being there - wherever - the consumer is, will be the winning brands of the near-future. If consumers want to shop the brand wherever and whenever they want, but these brands are locking themselves in to other channels and platforms, they're missing the biggest opportunity that social technology has brought: the ability to create a powerful and direct relationship with a consumer.

What's your take?

Tags:

brand

brand experience

brand narrative

branded experience

consumer

content

digital experience

digital media

direct relationships

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online social network

pinterest

publishing

responsive web design

social graph

social media

social technology

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The Internet Could Be Closed For Business

Once upon a time...

It wasn't too long ago that many media pundits felt that the Internet would tip the scales from the mass media-controlled world to an open, freer, world where any one individual could wield their own publishing power. The thought went that we would have a much more open media - one where individuals exercised their democratic right to not only share what they were thinking, but to become a media entity unto themselves (The Huffington Post was a beacon in this argument). More recently, Clay Shirky (author of the bestselling business books, Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus) summed this all up simply by saying that the concept of publishing has shifted from a complex business process to simply being a button. It's humbling to think of just how quickly the Internet and digitization of the publishing industry changed everything.

When business gets involved, everything changes.

When I first started blogging and podcasting (in 2003), the Internet was both an open and a closed environment. Back then, the majority of people still used one of the major ISPs and portals as their destination (think AOL, Yahoo or whatever). These were known as "walled gardens" as they controlled the overall experience that consumers had. When people got more comfortable with the Web and browsing on their own, the beginning of blogs and message boards (which happened in parallel) were an indie-like fairground for independence. People were publishing online journals and creating communities around very obscure areas of interest. Back then, I could have never imagined that thousands of people (each and every day) would be interested in my musings about the marketing and communications industry. If you take a step back and read the classic business book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, you'll note that the authors of that book (Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger), were setting the stage for a world that was open, where markets were truly conversations, and people's content was just as (if not more) relevant than what we were getting from the traditional mass media. As with all good (and open) things, when corporate America caught wind of the rising popularity of these channels, they swooped in. They try to commercialize it and capture it for their own bidding.

Aren't we more open than ever before?

While people are sharing more personal information online than ever before (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and online dating sites), we're also seeing a world where the dominant players are creating nothing more than what many see another "walled gardens." It would be well-worth arguing that the newer channels (look to Facebook, Google or Apple for more clues) make the Internet portals of yesteryear seems like open source, when you start scratching beneath the surface to realize just how closed these environments truly are. Just last week, there were many indicators or this world getting more closed. We had Facebook launch their own app center. By forcing websites to build in-Facebook apps, the online social network is able to keep consumers locked in on Facebook, without ever leaving. Rumors also began to swirl that Apple would be announcing at its next event its own mapping engine and removing Google Maps as their default search for location. There are news announcements happening like this on a more frequent basis.

This doesn't feel like an open Internet.

For years, Apple has been mastering a "cradle to the grave" business strategy. By opening retail stores, they get consumers at the first stage of the purchase cycle and they keep them through the purchase, support (Genius Bar) and even the content that goes on the devices (think iTunes). If you look at how much time consumers spend on Facebook, you'll realize that it gobbles up the majority of their online experience, so having them add Facebook apps instead of searching on Google and heading to other websites, keeps them enraptured in Facebook's closed environment. Part of this is a bigger/newer trend that we're starting to see: brands that are selling both products and services that are intertwined. An iPhone is useless without iTunes and the digital content to put on it. It's much easier to get trained on your iPhone by the people at Apple and buy your post-purchase care from them as well. The other major digital players are quickly following suit.

Is closed a bad thing?

While companies like Google may argue that closed is bad, it's important to realize that human beings seem drawn to closed environments - especially for more nascent products and services. It's as if an open environment is "too open" that it create analysis paralysis for the average consumer. While early adopters love to tinker and push products to see what happens, the mass majority has an expectation that something is not only going to work, but that it's going to provide a great experience. Are brands like Google, Facebook, Apple and others really trying to keep consumers locked in? It seems like they are: simply to ensure a great experience. Yet, with that great experience, many people are beginning to see the challenges of closed environments as well (control of data being one of the major issues). Just ask anyone who has an e-book reader and can't share and exchange books between platforms or even copy and paste components of the content for their own use.

We initially thought that the Internet was an open platform, but is it too closed? What do you think?

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 - The Internet: Bring Your V.I.P. Card to Get Online .

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aol

apple

blog

blogging

business book

business column

christopher locke

clay shirky

closed platform

cognitive surplus

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david weinberger

digital content

doc searls

ebook reader

facebook

facebook app

genius bar

google

google maps

here comes everybody

internet

iphone

itunes

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media hacker

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message board

new media column

online community

online dating

online journal

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open media

open platform

podcasting

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rick levine

the cluetrain manifesto

the huffington post

twitter

walled garden

web portal

yahoo

youtube

In A World Of Digital Vertigo

Episode #309 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Andrew Keen built the popular Audiocafe.com in 1995 (during the dot com boom) but has since moved on to become a media pundit. He is currently the host of Keen On - a video interview program on TechCrunch, a columnist for CNN and a regular speaker and commentator on Internet culture and digital technologies. Most recently, he released his second book, Digital Vertigo - How Today's Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing and Disorienting Us. His first book, Cult Of The Amateur - How The Internet Is Killing Our Culture, raised more than a few eyebrows for its contrarian view on the Internet, culture and social media. I've been following Keen for a long while, so I was thrilled that he agreed to have a digital media throwdown. 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 #309.

Tags:

advertising podcast

andrew keen

blog

blogging

cnn

cult of the amateur

david usher

digital marketing

digital vertigo

facebook

itunes

keen on

marketing

marketing podcast

online social network

podcast

podcasting

social media

techcrunch

twitter

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #103

93Is 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 (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) 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:

The mystery of La Contessa - San Francisco Bay Guardian . "I'm on the West Coast this week, and seeing many of my Burner friends again for the first time in a while. As the summer kicks off, a certain kind of scruffy Bay Area hipster--what happens when goths meet dust--starts planning for their final summer fling, which happens just North of Reno. Burning Man is an amazing experience, like being a roadie in the middle of a week-long Cirque Du Soleil show. And it's rife with drama and color. I just learned about the torching of La Contessa, a school bus-turned-Spanish-galleon embroiled in a murky (dusty?) lawsuit. Even the scandals of Black Rock City are weird and fraught with kinks, twist, and smoke." (Alistair for Hugh).

Secret History of Silicon Valley . "The other big event this summer is Startupfest, an annual conference on entrepreneurship run in Montreal. This year's theme is Startups That Matter. I'm lucky enough to work with Phil Telio on the content, and we've got a number of speakers who were around when it all began, building things like DNS and the spreadsheet. Steve Blank, the Godfather of Eric Ries' Lean Startup movement, is a Berkley professor with a long understanding of the patterns that shaped Silicon Valley. In this hour-long (but fascinating and well worth it!) lecture at the Computer History Museum, he reminds us that the Valley wasn't just silicon - DARPA, the CIA, and others fueled the tech boom with government funds. As NASA engineers watch their budgets shrink, replaced by private contracting, this is a sobering reminder of the role governments play in massive, unlikely undertakings that change the world, and in launching startups that matter." (Alistair for Mitch).

  Mister Rogers Remixed - Garden of Your Mind - PBS Digital Studios . "Did you ever grow anything in the garden of your mind? You can grow ideas, in the garden of your mind." (Hugh for Alistair).

The Failures of the Facebook Generation in the Arab Spring - The Daily Beast . " Francis Fukayama ( End of History ) takes a look at the Arab Spring 's rather tepid results in actually changing things. Along the way he looks at the history of popular uprisings, and notes (Quebec, listen up): 'Students know how to demonstrate and riot, but they generally can't organize their way out of a paper bag.'" (Hugh for Mitch).

What It's Like To Be The CEO: Revelations and Reflections - On Startups . "This one of the most brutally honest pieces I have ever read about being an entrepreneur. The world sees deals like Instagram being bought by Facebook or leaders like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and think that it's all smooth sailing, easy and that it happens fast. It ain't. I'm in year ten of my agency, Twist Image , and it still feels like a startup and we're still scrappy like it was being run out of our garage (even though it's two offices now). From this post: 'Very tough to sleep most nights of the week. Weekends don't mean anything to you anymore. Closing a round of financing is not a relief. It means more people are depending on you to turn their investment into 20 times what they gave you. It's very difficult to 'turn it off'. But at the same time, television, movies and vacations become so boring to you when your company's future might be sitting in your inbox or in the results of a new A/B test you decided to run.' Yup... feels like just another day in paradise to me." (Mitch for Alistair).

Pixar story rules (one version) - The Pixar Touch . "Telling a great story is something all of us need to do a whole lot better, but it's way more art than science. The people at Pixar know how to tell great stories. This short and snappy post has a ton of illuminating concepts in it. Some of them are obvious but mostly ignored by the masses. It's a great reminder that in order to sell anything, we need to be able to tell a better and more unique story... and this has some great starting points." (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.

Tags:

alistair croll

bitcurrent

burning man

cia

cirque du soleil

complete web monitoring

computer history museum

darpa

end of history

eric ries

facebook

francis fukayama

garden of your mind

gigaom

hugh mcguire

human 20

iambik

instagram

lean startup

librivox

link exchange

linkbait

managing bandwidth

mark zuckerberg

media hacks

mister rogers

nasa

on startups

pbs digital studios

phil telio

pixar

pressbooks

san francisco bay guardian

secret history of silicon valley

startupfest

steve blank

steve jobs

story

the arab spring

the book oven

the daily beast

the pixar touch

year one labs

youtube

Where Does Creativity Come From?

In short: we don't know.

But... we are learning. Most recently, Jonah Lehrer released his latest book, Imagine - How Creativity Works. The book has become a massive bestseller and, just this week, it was announced that Lehrer is leaving his regular post at Wired Magazine to join The New Yorker (more on that here: Jonah Lehrer Departs Wired for The New Yorker). Imagine is a fascinating journey that looks at everything from the biology behind creativity to where ideas come from. Lehrer recently spoke to the staff at Google about his latest book and his findings behind the mystery that is creativity.

Here's one great hour on the topic of creativity with Jonah Lehrer:

Tags:

business book

creativity

google

imagine

jonah lehrer

the new yorker

wired magazine

5 New Books That Every Marketer Must Read (That Aren't About Marketing)

Looking for something good to read this weekend?

If you happen to be lucky enough to have some free time (who does?) and you're looking for something interesting to read, something that will help you get ahead at your job or something that will give you additional skills where you may have been lacking, then here's a suggestion: don't read another marketing book. Surprised by this answer? Don't be. There is a world of great new thinking out there (and yes, it's longer than a tweet and longer than an average blog post) that has nothing to do with marketing or growing your business. That being said, the content from these books will make you better (and smarter). Promise. In the past little while, I've been immersed in a handful of very different books, and they all offer some new and interesting perspectives that you simply don't find in the standard marketing/business book fare.

5 new books that every marketer must read (that aren't about marketing)...

Comic-Con And The Business Of Pop Culture - What the world's wildest trade show can tell us about the future of entertainment by Rob Salkowitz. I'm a massive comic book nerd. I was a huge collector back when I was very young, and I would frequent comic book conventions whenever I had the disposable income to do so. I've never been to the Mecca of comic book conventions known as Comic-Con in San Diego. This event has evolved from rows of musty comic book boxes and people looking like the dude from The Simpsons that sells comic books to a world-class event about the future of entertainment. Some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters are launched at Comic-Con, and many of that city's success is determined by how fans react to screenings and previews at the convention. The sold out annual event hosts thousands of people who have come to realize that life - as we have known it - has truly become Revenge of the Nerds. If only I could go back in time and tell the thirteen year old me that Geek Culture would become the coolest thing ever, high school may have been a lot more tolerable. This book talks about how great it is that comic book culture has become so widely accepted and commercialized, but it also warns of how bad it is for some the more ardent comic book purists.

The Honest Truth About Dishonesty - How we lie to everyone... especially ourselves by Dan Ariely. I'm a massive fan of everything Dan Ariely. I loved Predictably Irrational and his second book, The Upside Of Irrationality. Dan is a personal mentor to me and he introduced me to my literary agent (so I am, forever, in his debt). That being said, had he released a dud of a book, I would not bother to mention it. This one is awesome... especially if you're in the marketing business. Seth Godin's provocative book, All Marketers Are Liars, raised some eyebrows, but Dan takes lying and dishonesty to a whole new level with this one. How often do you lie? How often are you dishonest? Do you consider yourself a liar or someone that is dishonest? Read this book and I promise that your answer will change. As sad as that sounds.

The Quiet - The power of Introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain. I had the pleasure of hanging out with Susan at this year's TED conference and was very taken by her book (which I read a short while before the conference). As a public speaker and someone recognized as being good at networking, I'm actually very introverted. I never understood how to reconcile these two very opposing "me's" but this book helped. While we all celebrate connectivity, collaboration and open work spaces, Susan makes a very compelling argument for alone time and the value of thinking and working alone... and what this means to our society. Whether you're a loner or not, The Quiet is a great read.

Steal Like An Artist - 10 things nobody told you about being creative by Austin Kleon. This is the smallest and shortest book on this list by far (but don't let it fool you). While you can finish this book in about an hour, it will keep you thinking about creativity and what it means to be a creative person for days, weeks and months. It's a smart and peppy little book that gives a ton of direction about how to get more creative about whatever it is that you're doing. I've adopted many of Kleon's ideas and my life is much richer (and emotional) because of it. It's hard to believe that this much wisdom only costs about ten bucks. Steal Like An Artist makes me realize just how cheap books are when you consider the value of education you're getting in return.

Wired For Culture - Origins of the human social mind by Mark Pagel. Pack a lunch for this one. At over 350 pages long, Pagel (an evolutionary biologist) traces humanity and everything we have become back to the introduction of culture and how much value it has brought to our lives (it's more than you think). Not only to our civilization by to our physical evolution as a species. Yes, this is no light reading, but it is written beautifully and dabbles into so many different areas of humanity (from psychology and physiology to biology and humanities). It's a meaty read and not one to be taken lightly. By the end of it, you'll have a much deeper understanding of what makes us humans tick.

What about you? Any other new books that you've read that are not about marketing, but a book every marketer should read?

Tags:

all marketers are liars

austin kleon

book

business book

civilization

collaboration

comic book

comic book convention

comic book culture

comic con

comiccon and the business of pop culture

connectivity

creativity

culture

dan ariely

entertainment

evolution

evolutionary biologist

geek culture

humanity

introvert

literary agent

mark pagel

marketer

marketing

marketing book

networking

open work space

predictably irrational

public speaker

reading

revenge of the nerds

rob salkowitz

seth godin

steal like an artist

susan cain

ted conference

the honest truth about dishonesty

the quiet

the simpsons

the upside of irrationality

wired for culture

Dear Steven Pressfield

Dear Steven,

For a long time, one of my best friends was also my mentor and my coach. His name is Tony Blauer and he's one of the world's leading close-quarter combatives instructors. I basically grew up in Tony's home. As an early teen, I studied martial arts with him out of his upper duplex in Montreal and when I lost a whole whack of weight back in the early nineties, I found myself being a gym rat in his life, once again. What I learned from Tony (and still continue to digest with each and every passing day) is that studying any of the combative arts is less about learning how to physically fight/handle oneself and much more about the mind, psychology and how we handle our emotions. Tony was (and continues to be) a voracious reader. While hanging out in his house and home office, I was exposed to volumes of books on topics as varied as business, personal development, spirituality, military and combatives. I spent a lot of time reading books like Living the Martial Way by Forrest E. Morgan, Tao of Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee and The Art of War by Sun Tzu. One day, I noticed a shiny silver cover and the title of the book was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

I picked it up and could not put it down.

It helped me better understand why I procrastinate (I used to live and die by the mantra, "if it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done"), why I got blocked and how to write with a reckless abandon - knowing full well that the job was to get the words out and that I could spin them into the right words later. Prior to that, I would spend days and hours waiting for the right words. It was only years later, after following Seth Godin's The Domino Project and seeing him release your book, Do The Work, when I made the connection between that book and Do The Work. I was honored that you agreed to join me in recording a podcast and since then, I've delved a little deeper into some of your works of fiction (namely, Killing Rommel and The Legend Of Bagger Vance).

I picked up your latest book, Turning Pro, a couple of days ago (at the recommendation of Seth). The timing could not have been more perfect. I was at the tail end of finishing my second book, CTRL ALT DEL, and needed some extra motivation to push through some of the rough patches and cinch the conclusion. While I'm only about halfway through Turning Pro, it's been a delightful read: full of nuggets that force me to crack open my brain, ask some very tough questions and do the thing that most of us dread: take a cold, hard look in the mirror and be honest about the work that we are creating.

I'm sure you get these types of notes each and every day, but thank you. Thank you for that new, little voice in my head that says to me: "do the work." Thanks for helping me clarify that bringing a blue collar work ethic to my work/art is the way that the work/art gets done. I now wake up, do my family things, get to the office and get to work. I no longer sit around hoping that inspiration will strike like a bolt of lighting. My entire framework for thinking up client ideas, writing, blogging, tweeting and more is driven by the ideas you have brought forward in The War of Art, Do The Work and now, Turning Pro. I know you have a deep passion for writing fiction, but I'm a massive fan of your thinking on creativity and how to get more out of our brains and muse, so keep writing in that genre too.

OK, enough of this... it's time for me to get back to the work!

Warm regards,

Mitch.

I was very moved by the book, Steal Like An Artist, by Austin Kleon. Especially the section titled, Write Fan Letters. The truth is that I used to always write a note to the author of the book that I had just finished. I guess I got too busy (or read to many books or became lazy) to keep at it. In Kleon's book, he recommends writing a public fan letter and ends the section by saying: "The most important thing is that you show your appreciation without expecting anything in return, and that you get new work out of the appreciation." It's a beautiful concept. With your permission, I'll be using this space from time to time to write these kinds of letters. Welcome to Project: Public Fan Letter. Feel free to do a few of them yourself.

Tags:

austin kleon

blog

blue collar work ethic

bruce lee

business book

close quarters combatives

combative arts

creativity

ctrl alt del

do the work

forrest e morgan

killing rommel

living the martial way

martial arts

personal development

podcast

psychology

public fan letter

seth godin

spirituality

steal like an artist

steven pressfield

sun tzu

tao of jeet kune do

the art of war

the domino project

the legend of bagger vance

the war of art

tony blauer

turning pro

twitter

writing

Is Social Media Too Good To Be True?

Has the Internet turned into a wasteland of hollow ideas and groupthink?

Is it possible that in a day and age where any one individual can have an idea and publish it in text, images, audio and video for the world to see - instantly and for free - that the true value of critical thinking is all but lost? Has all of the user-generated content that we see in channels like YouTube degenerated us to the point where the only thing everyone talks about around the water cooler is some moronic video of a poodle on a skateboard? Andrew Keen made this argument in his book, Cult Of The Amateur - How The Internet Is Killing Our Culture (Bantam Dell Publishing Group, June 2007). The book, which has been published in seventeen different languages, took a very opposing view of the Internet and the power of social media. In some instances, this made Keen massively popular (especially when mass media channels wanted an opposing view) and in other circles, he was named the anti-Christ of Silicon Valley. Nice title, if you can get it.

So who, exactly, is Andrew Keen?

The British-American built the popular Audiocafe.com in 1995 (during the dot com boom) but has since moved on to become a media pundit. He is currently the host of Keen On - a video interview program on TechCrunch, a columnist for CNN and a regular speaker and commentator on Internet culture and digital technologies. Most recently, he released his second book, Digital Vertigo - How Today's Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing and Disorienting Us (St. Martin's Press).

Don Tapscott is a world-leading authority on innovation, media and the economic and social impact of technology. He's been at this game for a very long time (over thirty years), having published close to fifteen widely read and bestselling books on the topic (including Wikinomics, The Digital Economy, Growing Up Digital and his latest, Macrowikimonics). Tapscott is currently the Chairman of Moxie Insight, a member of World Economic Forum, Adjunct Professor of Management for the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and Martin Prosperity Institute Fellow. Here's how he described Keen's book, Digital Vertigo: "More disorienting drivel from the enfant terrible of the digital age. Do not buy this book as it will distract you from the truth (my views)." In contrast to this thinking is Sherry Turkle. She is an Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT and the founder and current director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, and published the bestselling business book, Alone Together - Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (Basic Books, January 2011). Here's her take on Keen's book: "A bracing read. From Hitchcock to Mark Zuckerberg and the politics of privacy, a savvy observer of contemporary digital culture reframes current debates in a way that clarifies and enlightens."

Keen on Digital Vertigo.

"My new book is less about how we think of ourselves as next generation broadcasters and much more about how we seem to be revealing more and more of ourselves online and being continually watched," says Keen from his home in San Francisco. "Digital Vertigo is about both narcissism and voyeurism and less about the network becoming a next generation media platform for the distribution of information. While I don't think mass media was a paradise, I am nostalgic for it. As it disappears more and more, we're going to remember not its weaknesses - which there were many - but its strengths: It's ability to speak to larger groups of people than the niche media of the Internet. It's not a technological issue, it's a cultural one."

How self-involved is your digital experience?

If Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are not about narcissism, what is? Prior to online social networks and social media, the majority of us would start off our online journey at a destination or a portal (think Yahoo!, AOL, etc...). Now, the portal is a personal portal. Most people's homepage is their Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profiles. We hop over to Google and LinkedIn to creep on what others are saying about us. We have a strong expectation that advertisers - who are now tracking our each and every digital move - will direct advertising that is completely relevant and complimentary to our online consumption and creation. In biblical speak, the majority of us are building what can only be described as digital shrines to ourselves, and all of our personal glory.

The photos that we post are almost as unrealistic as our expectations that we'll get some semblance of happiness from all of these digital ego boosts that we live in.

"I'm fascinated with this idea of serendipity," says Keen about how we are destroying chance, mystery and general interest in our society. "I'm trying to deal with serendipity in a film noire, Hitchcockian, way in Digital Vertigo. I'm arguing that what appears to be serendipitous is actually quite the reverse... Nothing is really serendipitous on the Web. Everything is arranged. Everything is planned. So, when we appear to come across something by chance, it is because networks and advertisers are organizing it that way. Hitchcock's Vertigo is the central metaphor in my book because in that film, Jimmy Stewart got set-up to fall in love with somebody who didn't really exist. I think the same kind of phenomenon happens all of the time online. Maybe it's a deeper, more philosophical, conversation that perhaps nothing is serendipitous on the Web... it's not my message that has changed over the years, it's that the rest of the world - and more sensible people - are starting to better understand this surveillance culture that includes the Facebooks, Googles and Foursquares of the world."

Yes, Keen's work is contrarian, provocative and forward thinking.

As more and more of us expose ourselves (and those around us) online - and in real-time - has anyone stopped to ask, "At what cost?" How is this good for us - as individuals - and for our culture? This is what Keen is trying to decipher in Digital Vertigo. So, whether or not you're wondering if social media is good for business and equally powerful for individuals, it's always important to have thinkers like Andrew Keen throw a wet blanket on whether or not Facebook is making us better.

Regardless of whether of not Wall Street has already done that for us.

The above post is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

Montreal Gazette - Personal cost of social media is the subject of debate .

Vancouver Sun - not yet published.

You can listen to my conversation with Andrew Keen in its entirety in an upcoming episode of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast (which will be published in the coming weeks).

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The New Retail Experience

How do you want to shop?

There was an old retail paradigm (that still rings true): get them to the store. It's the last mile. This is where the transaction happens. E-commerce - as we have known it to date - has been somewhat siloed in this paradigm. Many retailers still treat their online store as if it's just another store. There are so many issues and challenges in getting to the point of excellence with e-commerce, that many companies don't even know where to begin (and we're talking about the small, medium and large retailers here). It's everything from merchandising and pricing down to the postal service and dealing with returns. If it feels like e-commerce is something akin to Pandora's Box, you're not alone in you feelings.

The customer... at the middle.

And yet, if you sit down with traditional retailers and even the ones that sell exclusively online, you will see slide after slide in corporate presentations of this consumer now, firmly, placed in the middle of the experience. Everything centers around them and they are all-knowing. This part is true: never before in the history of business have consumers been this much further ahead of the brands in terms of communications, marketing and connectivity. Brands (and retail, in particular) continue to struggle to keep pace. Watching some of the major retailers work the "buy it online, pick it up in the store model" gives a glimpse of hope that retail operations won't become anything more than a place where people go "showrooming" (this is when you go to a store to look, but buy everything online either via your mobile device or when you get home).

Great brands create great experiences.

There is no doubt that the biggest opportunity that retailers have is to surprise and delight with a great in-store experience. Shopping is still a very social act and people love congregating around busy centers of commerce to experience life together. What brands needs to get their heads around is that the customer of today has already, fundamentally, changed. Not just because they are connected and mobile, but because they can now shop your brand twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and in a myriad of ways.

Setting up roadblocks.

The new retail experience is simple to explain: let them shop your brand wherever and whenever they want. The new retail experience is hard to execute on: we're talking about has challenges that range from technology and infrastructure (both back-end and front-end) to real estate and human resources. Human beings have a very difficult time with change - especially change that is backed up with decades of "this is how it has been." It's amazing to think that we live in such uncertain financial times on one hand and - on the other hand - how hard retailers often make it for customers to give them their money. I'm talking about willing customers who just want to shop the brand - whether it's on their mobile phone or in-store.

Tethered systems.

What retail needs is a more tethered system. A symbiotic technology that can pull together all of their physical locations with their inventory that marries their loyalty programs to their ecommerce platforms. What this really means is moving the digital channel out of a vertical and making it the horizontal that runs across the organization. It won't happen any time soon, but it's going to happen sooner or later. The convergence of ecommerce and physical retail buying is about to converge. We're almost at that point in time where you can walk into a store and shop it like you always have, but then be able to have a complimentary ecommerce experience to go along with it. This could mean the selling of virtual goods and it could also mean your ability to buy styles not available at the physical location. This could mean that it happens on an in-store kiosk like a screen or right from the palm of your smartphone-holding hand.

There's a new retail experience. Consumers are just waiting for the retailers to catch up.

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The Return On Influence In A World Of Klout

Episode #308 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Mark W. Schaefer over at Grow Blog recently published his second book, Return On Influence - The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing, which dissects the fascinating world of social scoring an individual consumer's true influence in the online channels. While this is already a very contentious issue, it seems like marketers are the first ones in the door on this. We see this as a prime opportunity to tip the scales by better understanding who is complaining about us and who is lauding the brands that we represent. At the same time, many marketers see Klout and the power to social score individuals as a great way to not only nurture our evangelists but uncover new ones. Whether or not you think that this is an idea that will stick, it's here... it's going to evolve and people like Mark think it's a pretty big deal. 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 #308.

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