Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 333

When Traditional Media Fails To Understand New Media

Should you be paid to Blog?

If you want to create a lightning rod of discourse in the online channels, just ask that question. If you want to make that lightning rod look like a mole hill, ask the same question but add in the words, "for The Huffington Post" at the end of the sentence. Don't worry, this is not another Blog post that will evaluate the business model of The Huffington Post (in full disclosure, I write a regular column titled, Media Hacker, every two weeks for The Huffington Post that gives me great pleasure). In today's Montreal Gazette (another publication that I write for and love), there was an article titled, Huffington Post Quebec Loses Bloggers. This is not a geographic story, but a great indication of how traditional media fails to grasp what new media has brought. The crux of the story is that Huffington Post Quebec will be launching next week and nine "high-profile contributors... who had agreed to blog... have now pulled out over controversy they'd be writing for free."

Writing for free is not controversial.

Traditional media seems to believe that unless a writer is being paid, that there is some kind of inequity in the relationship or that someone is being taken advantage of. This is both silly and incorrect. If your full-time vocation is being a writer, you have a choice to get paid to write or to write for free. Simply put: sometimes you're paying the bills and in other instances you are both building a platform and getting promotional benefits from adding your voice in a new and different place. Many of the Bloggers at The Huffington Post leveraged that by-line to get book deals, other writing gigs, speaking opportunities or as a way to bolster their resume (which led to new employment or promotions). I wonder how many of the Bloggers who wrote for free at The Huffington Post and then got a book deal offered back some of that advance to The Huffington Post because without that byline (and the ability for the Blogger to leverage that platform to promote the book), the book deal may not have happened? But, I digress.

The majority of people who Blog for The Huffington Post are not professional writers.

In fact, the majority of the bigger names who contribute to The Huffington Post don't even have a Blog. These politicians, celebrities, artists and thinkers are leveraging (or using) The Huffington Post's massive reach and platform for promotional means. They're using it to put their ideas out there. That was always the spirit of what The Huffington Post offers and it continues to be that way (if you also dig a little deeper, you'll note that The Huffington Post has been hiring a lot of writers, journalists and editors over the past few years). If nine high-profiled individuals have decided that the only way that they would like to take part in a platform like The Huffington Post is to be paid, then they should look at getting a writing gig at some of the newspapers, magazines and TV stations that are promoting a non-news items like this one. If you're not being paid to contribute and anyone can contribute, did The Huffington Post actually "lose" anything? I guess they also lost the other eight million people who live in Quebec who have decided not to contribute?

Does new media undermine journalism?

It's not just about The Huffington Post. There is (still) a tremendous push from professional writers and journalists that providing content for free to online media channels undermines journalism because the content should never be given away for free. The more ardent supporters of this theory will say that it's also killing local writers and taking food away from their families. As a former professional journalist, my reaction is: crazy talk. This Blog has given me both credibility and audience. The output of it has been requests from editors to contribute to magazines, newspapers, TV shows, a significant book publishing deal, speaking opportunities and - most importantly - countless new business opportunities for Twist Image (the main reason we started this Blog in the first place).

Do I get paid to Blog? No. Does Blogging pay? Big time!

I contribute to The Huffington Post and Montreal Gazette for the same reason: to get my name out there in the hopes that it drives many new and powerful opportunities into Twist Image. And - in case you were wondering - so far, so good. If my sole income was based on me selling my words, I would not stop this process at all. In fact, I would recommend ratcheting it up. Why? The more I write for free, the more other media properties want to pay me to write. How strange is this: I have been offered more paid writing opportunities since starting this Blog and contributing to The Huffington Post than when I was a full-time freelance writer back in the nineties.

Everyone benefits.

We live in a free and capitalist society (like it or not). Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything against their will when it comes to contributing to a Blog. It's a choice. If the publisher benefits and the writer benefits, I would argue that everyone benefits. If a writer feels that the publisher will benefit more, there is a very simple resolution: don't do it and start your own. If the writer benefits more than the publisher, maybe the writer should do something to correct that inequity as well. Traditional media is built on a scarcity model (limited space to tell a story and vetted by a small number of editors). New Media is driven by the abundance model (anyone who can contribute is welcome to and the audience will decide what gains traction). It's up to these journalists, writers and bloggers to decide which platform mix works best for their careers.

Now it's your turn: do you think Bloggers should be paid?

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A Pinteresting Story

That Facebook IPO...

With rumors swirling of Facebook's pending IPO (and the billions at play that go along with it), it does seem like the most opportune time for the online social networking behemoth to go public. With over 800 million users and talk that it will hit a billion connected people by the summer, it doesn't seem like Twitter is a true competitor... or that any other competitors are waiting in the wings. In fact, if Facebook's growth and interest continues to propagate, we can expect that more and more platforms will simply offer social networking solutions that can live and play alongside and within Facebook (much like Twitter does). Think about software that was developed for the Windows platform, and this will be a similar strategy for many of the newer social media startups.

That Pinterest thing.

That being said, Pinterest has been gaining a ton of attention lately and widely regarded as one of the hottest new and shiny bright digital objects to come along in some time. Pinterest is a digital mood board mixed with online scrapbooking. Users create a board (it can be anything from cool pictures of cats to the most fascinating business Blogs) and as you come across pieces of content online (and it can be text, images, audio or video), you "pin" the content (which is done by installing a "pin it" button on your web browser's toolbar). Pinterest creates a mood board or visualization of this content. All of the boards that users create are both public and can be followed by others. Users can also connect to one another, share, comment, collaborate and more.

At first blush this may not sound like anything all that groundbreaking.

Pinterest launched in closed-beta in mid-2010. In August of last year, Time Magazine named it in its "50 Best Websites of 2011" and last December, the analytics firm, Experian Hitwise, said that Pinterest's user-base had forty times the number of visitors it had from only six months prior. It was also this past December that it cracked into the top ten social media sites in the world. At the time of that explosive growth, Pinterest was still not openly available to everyone and those wanting to join were relegated to a waiting list.

Is Pinterest delicious?

For those who have been around the digital block, Pinterest seems like a more modern play on Delicious (which is a social bookmarking service for saving and sharing your web bookmarks). Delicious was created by Joshua Schacter in 2003 as the notion of tagging (or labeling) content to make it findable by others begun to take hold. Delicious got acquired by Yahoo in 2005 and became the defacto destination to share one's bookmarks online. Most recently, the two co-founders of YouTube - Chad Hurley and Steve Chen - purchased Delicious and have tweaked it into a place to "find cool stuff and collect it for easy sharing." Back in 2003, the Internet could not really handle too much audio and video, so text-based platforms were more commonplace. If Schacter were launching Delicious today, it would probably look and feel a lot like Pinterest.

What's with all of this sharing, anyway?

Businesses grapple with Social Media because they have been mis-informed that these platforms provide an opportunity for them to have a conversation with their consumers. While this would be panacea, the truth is that what makes something social is simply its ability to be as findable and shareable as possible (strong engagement and conversation can only happen after the other stuff has been mastered). Platforms like Pinterest are rising in popularity because we live in a world of over-sharing (look no further than the river of tweets on Twitter or your wall on Facebook). The only way we're going to get better at curating and aggregating this mass amount of content and bucketing it in a way that feels more cohesive is through platforms like Pinterest (and it's very friendly visualization of content). By sharing this content - which has been both aggregated and curated by human beings - odds are that some of this over-sharing can transition from the world of uselessness and benign to powerful and fascinating.

It's in the way that you use it.

What also makes Pinterest a platform that has captured the attention of many is that - according to Experian Hitwise - the site is especially popular with women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four (nearly sixty percent of its users). Perhaps the days of new and emerging platforms being dominated by young, male users in the early adoption phase are finally coming to an end, as anybody and everybody has a computer, smartphone and/or tablet in tow? Perhaps the adoption is happening because these newer platforms are simply that much easier and fun to use?

Either way, we're faced with another online place for businesses to pin their hopes on. Pun intended.

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 - In the mood for Pinterest.

Vancouver Sun - not yet published.

Also of Interest:

7 Creative Ways Your Brand Can Use Pinterest - via ClickZ.

Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers - via Mashable.

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chad hurley

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youtube

Blogging Is Dead... Here We Go Again

Less and less of the Inc. 500 are Blogging. Blogging is dying.

ReadWriteWeb's post, Blogging Declines Across the Inc. 500, was bound for linkbait heaven. Who doesn't love dumping on a once popular platform - especially when it looks like it is being abandoned by corporate America and the bigger brands? According to the Blog post, "A new longitudinal study at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth focusing on the online activities of the Inc. 500 has found a huge drop in the number of companies maintaining corporate blogs over the past year. The UMass researchers, under the direction of Nora Barnes, has been following this group for several years. Only 37% of those interviewed had a corporate blog last year, down from half of those interviewed in 2010."

Blogging is hard work. Blogging isn't for everyone.

I'm surprised that it took this long to see the decline in Blogging. The truth is that Blogging is a form of publishing and brands are traditionally not all that great when it comes to creating unique, compelling and frequently updated content. The nature of Blogging speeds this up as both frequency (how often you Blog) and micro-interactions (which happens via the back and forth of Blog comments) can be both time consuming and complex. In a world where Facebook, Twitter and YouTube blossomed, it seems obvious that brands would bail on Blogging for something that required less work... in a world where people were spending less and less time consuming this type of content and became more interested in shorter spurts (140 characters of less) and more snappy/quick content in the form of Facebook wall posts or online videos (which doesn't require so much back and forth).

Blogging works for the brands that want to make it work.

You won't see the people at Mashable or The Huffington Post worry too much about this news item because they know the dirty, little secret of Blogging: it's just a publishing platform. It's the content you put into it, how it resonates with an audience and the community that you can build from it that counts. There are many brands (the Twist Image one included) that are seeing nothing but growth and more engagement from their Blogs. This pruning of corporate American Blogs is probably the best thing to happen to Blogging in a long time. Perhaps all of those vapid and narcissistic attempts to convince unsuspecting consumers that their corporate Blog was authentic - when in reality it was either overtly or thinly-veiled marketing pap - will, hopefully, make way for more authentic voices and opinions to rise.

Blogging is not dead.

Blogging is only dead if you're a brand trying to use a Blog as an extension of your advertising or as a way to attempt to control your corporate messaging by using it to humanize the tone. For the rest of us, a Blog is freedom of expression. It's a place where people (and yes, this includes the people who make up the brand) share, engage and connect with one another. I'm not jaded (or stupid). I know that people would much prefer to tweet or update a Facebook page or record a quick video on YouTube (it's easier to create and easier to consume), but not all content is created equal and there are many different audiences for all of this content inequity. Blogging is not dead. Blogging is just a lot of hard work and you have to know what the vision and strategy is at the outset. The reason that most of these Inc. 500 brands have killed their Blog is more likely connected to a lack of vision and conversion model than the popularity of a Social Media platform.

Is Blogging dead or are useless Blogs dying?

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Examining Social Media With Michael Stelzner

Episode #290 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

If you still wonder how to make money on a Blog or what the future of publishing looks like, look no further than Michael Stelzner and his "magazine" Social Media Examiner. In a few short years, Michael has proven that not only does Social Media work to build a new media empire, but yes, you can make money (good and serious money) with a Blog. If you're struggling with what it takes to make compelling content that not only sticks with users, but gets them to share it and talk about, then this episode is just for you. 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 #290.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #84

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 (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:

Hollywood and Bust - netplaces . "As downloaders everywhere reel from the highs of beating back SOPA and PIPA, followed by the lows of many sources of free movies going dark, it's time for a history lesson. Today's movie industry lobbyists push for the enforcement of copyright law -- but only a century ago, Hollywood was born by an industry trying to avoid paying licenses to the inventors of the camera. That's right: Big Movie was once on the run from Edison and his patent thugs. What a difference a century makes." (Alistair for Hugh).

Riusuke Fukahori Paints Three-Dimensional Goldfish Embedded in Layers of Resin - Colossal . "This is a fascinating approach to sculpture. Or maybe it's painting. It's reminiscent of 3D printing, which is all the rage these days, but it's done by hand. It's also a great introduction to Colossal, which has many other great examples of modern art that's creative, surprising, and often inspiring." (Alistair for Mitch).

Between the Lines - Los Angeles Magazine . "Do we build parking lots so that people can get around cities in their cars? Or do we build cities in order to justify parking lots?" (Hugh for Alistair).

Saudi Arabia. Nigeria. Venezuela. Canada? - Slate . "A Slate article about Canada's new global image." (Hugh for Mitch).

Big Data, Big Dead End - CTRL-SHIFT . "In case you have been living under a rock, the Internet is less about reporting news and facts and much more about the opinions of others. In this instance, Alan Mitchell says that while big data (and how to use) is all the rage, it's simply not going to work out in the way that we need it. Sure, it's easy to take a contrarian viewpoint, but in this instance it's a well thought-out perspective that is worthy of your attention as we all take that dive into the deep end of the big data pool." (Mitch for Alistair).

Applied Neuroscience, the Six-String Method - The New York Times . "I used to play electric bass quite a bit (I was in a band and all). From there I tinkered with a guitar (mostly because my brother was a guitarist), but it has been years since I played. Something came over me the other week (maybe it was because I was listening to The Coffee House Channel on Sirius XM a lot) and I bought an acoustic parlor guitar. A couple of days after that, I was in New York City with my literary agent who just had another one of his authors, Gary Marcus, release his book, Guitar Zero. The famed Cognitive Psychologist decided to learn how to play guitar when he turned 40. This book not only documents his frustration but shows us the complexity of the brain and learning as we get older. Some cool riffs in here... pardon the pun." (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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year one labs

Don't Let Your Brand Be Creepy

It's important to remember that being transparent is not the same as divulging personal information.

We have never seen a moment like this on our history. Look at the combined audience of platforms like Blogging, Podcasting, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and more. What you are confronted with is a very interesting journal of how we - as a culture - are. There are both personal and professional components to it. Many people think that we are over-sharing, while others think that we're divulging way too much personal information. If you're looking to better understand what all of this publicness means, I can highly recommend Jeff Jarvis' latest business book, Public Parts.

The brand struggle.

As brands attempt to connect in a more real and human way with their consumers, they're also struggling and straddling the line of what would be considered a best practice (transparency) while fumbling into a world of asking for too much (or getting too personal). Recently, I came across a major consumer electronics manufacturer's Facebook Page and was shaking my head in disbelief at the content. Whoever was managing the community was clearly inexperienced. Going back in their timeline, the content was strong and transparent. They were dealing customer service issues, encouraging people to check out new items, asking their opinions on the industry that the brand serves and also provided interesting insights that were not just self-serving marketing blather. From what I can tell, interest in the Facebook Page from the general public seemed to dissipate over the past month, and suddenly the postings were these strange, personal requests. Things like, "so where are the parties at this weekend?" or asking people more personal questions that have no relation to the brand or their product development. You can see by the lack of response that a line had been crossed.

Brands are not people. People are not brands. 

If a friend on Facebook asks, "so, what are you plans this weekend?" it makes sense. It doesn't when a brand does this (unless that brand is in the hospitality industry and trying to get you to come and spend your weekend with them). This is the immaturity of brands as they enter the more social fray. They try to get too personal and instead of it coming off as sincere, it comes off as creepy and pushes people away.

Transparency leads to personal.

If the people who operate on behalf of the brand are transparent in their interactions, then slowly - over time - these people will develop more personal relationships with those who are interacting with them. I think people like Richard Binhammer over at Dell exemplify this. When Dell first became active in Social Media (and they were on there very early on), Binhammer became a lighthouse and because he was truly doing his best to get results and be transparent, people began interacting with him (and many others) that much more. He was being transparent, but it wasn't overly personal and it (obviously) never crossed the line of divulging information about the company that was not relevant to the interaction. It was also done in a way where Binhammer was transparent but not overly personal about his own, personal, life. It struck the right balance.

Truthiness.

We have to be able to take a step back and remember that a lot of these interactions are not only new(ish) for a brand, but it simply wasn't done all that much before the advent of Social Media (don't believe me? Then please read The Cluetrain Manifesto). Brands must use real people to have real interactions with the people interested in them. Those real people must know what the brand stands for and how to communicate that. It's about being transparent without damaging the brand. It's about being personal within the confines of the brand narrative. And, ultimately, it's about adding value and being helpful... it's not about becoming someone's best friend. It's also not about being fake or a corporate shill. It must be authentic and transparent. It shouldn't be creepy.

To what depths do you think a brand should go?

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richard binhammer

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A World With No Keyboard And No Mouse

How's that user experience working out for you?

I often ridicule the masses (I know, that's very snide of me). When computers were first introduced the mantra was that, "screens are not easy to read or work on." Forget the fact that many dismissed the power of a mobile phone ("is your life that important that you need to make calls when you're not at home or at the office?"), and let's not forget the many people who would often say, "I could never type with my thumbs." To this day, there are still people who don't see the value in platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Twitter (and let's not even get started with things like Google+, tumblr or Pinterest). You probably know somebody who has not switched over to an iPhone or Android device because they think that they can't type on glass.

It's all about to change again... it's all about to get even more complicated.

There has been a tonnage of content produced to analyze the value of Siri (the voice-initiated personal assistant that was introduced with Apple's iPhone 4S). Along with Siri comes a nascent and emerging new way for people to navigate and engage with content: the voice. That's not all. While our kids were futzing around with their Nintendo wii or Xbox Kinect, we may have missed another way to navigate and engage with content: kinetics (or natural gestures).

RIP: Keyboard and mouse?

Can you imagine a day and age when you will not use a mouse or a keyboard? A day when true voice recognition lives and when you want something, you don't even have to touch it (which is all the rave now), but simply use natural gestures to move, navigate and manipulate the things you want to see and use? It's one of those strange things that doesn't quite feel like science fiction anymore but lies on the fringe of our understanding. Voice and kinetic will quickly become the natural way to get things done.

For shame.

Several years ago, I made the attempt to use voice recognition software. It brought me to a strange conclusion: speaking my thoughts is not the same as writing my thoughts down with a pen and paper, and writing my thoughts down with a pen and paper is not the same as typing. Strange but true. As a music journalist, I used to write four CD reviews weekly (remember CDS?). One week, I decided to test this theory, so I wrote one review via voice dictation, one by hand and one on the computer. The result? The flow and context was all off. Because my primary tool for writing for the computer, it was the only review that truly "sounded" like me in a natural way.

What this means for navigation.

As we adjust to a touch world (and, let's not kid ourselves, touching a screen is still a little strange and intimidating for many), we are morphing our human behavior. I'm the first to admit that switching from a BlackBerry to an iPhone has made my emails more succinct and to the point (I think expressing myself on Twitter has added to this as well). Has this made me less communicative or clear? Doubtful, but it has fundamentally changed my communication patterns. As voice and kinetic navigation and usability become a much more predominant force (and let's not kid ourselves, it will), it feels to me like it will change the way brands can interact with consumers (and vice-versa). Pushing that notion further, it seems plausible that the keyboard as we know it today could well become a specialty tool relegated to those who feel like it's the best way for them to communicate in a text-based form (imagine that: a keyboard as a specialty item or a piece of nostalgia). When our daily interactions change so dramatically, it becomes abundantly clear that marketing as we know it will go through a seismic shift in terms of usability, functionality, strategy and creativity. Right down to its core.

Just what we needed: another revolution... and more disruption. What's your take?

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And In The End...

Do you have a morbid fascination with the end?

I'm not sure why (but I'm pretty certain that a psychiatrist would love to figure it out of with me), but I often think about the end. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm scared about how my life will end (which is in direct relation with the many issues I have around control) and that I don't want it to end any time soon. There are plenty more things that I want to accomplish in my life and I often play the "which would you rather game" when it comes to deciding between family and the rest of my life (in case you're wondering, family wins almost every time). Don't worry, this Blog post will not descend into the scary depths of our mortality. All of this leads me to wonder: "why do I do what I do?"

The truth.

I discovered (mostly through trial and error) that I love the marketing world. I love working with brands and thinking about brands and tinkering with what they can do to connect (more honestly and powerfully) with their consumers. I look around on this flight that I'm on and I see people - from all walks of life - working in various occupations, and all of them are carrying a ton of technology on them. From smartphones and Kindles to iPads and laptops. I can't help but wonder and think about a time in the not-too-distant future when we're no longer carrying these devices around, but they are actually in us... a part of us (you know, sub dermal implants or brain activity activated... who knows?). As I was walking through the airport, I noticed that the current cover story for Wired Magazine is all about self-driving cars. It is these combined instances of science fiction catching up to reality that get me excited. It gets me thinking more about how much I love marketing, and it makes me hopeful that I'll be privileged enough to be alive long enough to see how we innovate from this very innovative moment in time that we currently find ourselves in.

So, what's all this talk about the end?

When I think about my career (or when I see other people thinking about their careers), it strikes me that even with goal setting and planning, it's usually a very shortsighted vision. Think about your current work situation. You're probably wondering about your next bonus or raise, your next step up the corporate ladder or that new business pitch that is just around the corner. Maybe, you're thinking about where you're going to be in the next five to ten years? But what about the end? Recently, I've been thinking about the evolution of marketing and the role that I want to have in it. It made me realize that I only have one true goal for myself in the marketing industry: longevity.

Longevity is key. 

In thinking back, it was always there, but it wasn't something that I was able to verbalize or acknowledge until very recently. I want a career in marketing with longevity. Nothing less. In looking at the client work we do at Twist Image, this Blog, the Podcast, the Six Pixels of Separation business book and many of the things that make up my personal work - on a day to day basis - it's all about longevity. How many people do you know who started a Blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn community or many other things that they simply dropped or got bored with? Yes, there's a moment in time when you have to ditch what's not working or even disengage if the platform can no longer deliver economic value to your brand, but in general, I think most brands (and the marketing professionals who represent them) have very short-sighted and short-term goals and visions. This Blog has been around since 2003 and if I think back, I can recall saying to myself that the Internet Gods have given me a great gift to be able to publish without editors telling me what's good or bad and without massive costs to reach an audience. Not only did I commit to it as a platform that fit with our business goal, but I knew that I wanted it to have that longevity as well (sorry, I won't stop Blogging any time soon).

Tortoise of hare?

Longevity doesn't happen quickly. That doesn't mean that I don't put a tremendous amount of focus on creating a sense of urgency. I want stuff to get done (and yes, I like quick wins as much as the next person). The bigger thought here is that when you're focused on longevity (for both yourself, professionally, and the brands you represent), odds are that you're going to do a lot more critical thinking and ultimately, you will be putting things into the market with a much more solid foundation and expectation for outcomes. I'm starting to think about everything in terms of longevity and the value that comes with it.

What are you after?

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self driving cars

smartphone

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And In The End...

Do you have a morbid fascination with the end?

I'm not sure why (but I'm pretty certain that a psychiatrist would love to figure it out of with me), but I often think about the end. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm scared about how my life will end (which is in direct relation with the many issues I have around control) and that I don't want it to end any time soon. There are plenty more things that I want to accomplish in my life and I often play the "which would you rather game" when it comes to deciding between family and the rest of my life (in case you're wondering, family wins almost every time). Don't worry, this Blog post will not descend into the scary depths of our mortality. All of this leads me to wonder: "why do I do what I do?"

The truth.

I discovered (mostly through trial and error) that I love the marketing world. I love working with brands and thinking about brands and tinkering with what they can do to connect (more honestly and powerfully) with their consumers. I look around on this flight that I'm on and I see people - from all walks of life - working in various occupations, and all of them are carrying a ton of technology on them. From smartphones and Kindles to iPads and laptops. I can't help but wonder and think about a time in the not-too-distant future when we're no longer carrying these devices around, but they are actually in us... a part of us (you know, sub dermal implants or brain activity activated... who knows?). As I was walking through the airport, I noticed that the current cover story for Wired Magazine is all about self-driving cars. It is these combined instances of science fiction catching up to reality that get me excited. It gets me thinking more about how much I love marketing, and it makes me hopeful that I'll be privileged enough to be alive long enough to see how we innovate from this very innovative moment in time that we currently find ourselves in.

So, what's all this talk about the end?

When I think about my career (or when I see other people thinking about their careers), it strikes me that even with goal setting and planning, it's usually a very shortsighted vision. Think about your current work situation. You're probably wondering about your next bonus or raise, your next step up the corporate ladder or that new business pitch that is just around the corner. Maybe, you're thinking about where you're going to be in the next five to ten years? But what about the end? Recently, I've been thinking about the evolution of marketing and the role that I want to have in it. It made me realize that I only have one true goal for myself in the marketing industry: longevity.

Longevity is key. 

In thinking back, it was always there, but it wasn't something that I was able to verbalize or acknowledge until very recently. I want a career in marketing with longevity. Nothing less. In looking at the client work we do at Twist Image, this Blog, the Podcast, the Six Pixels of Separation business book and many of the things that make up my personal work - on a day to day basis - it's all about longevity. How many people do you know who started a Blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn community or many other things that they simply dropped or got bored with? Yes, there's a moment in time when you have to ditch what's not working or even disengage if the platform can no longer deliver economic value to your brand, but in general, I think most brands (and the marketing professionals who represent them) have very short-sighted and short-term goals and visions. This Blog has been around since 2003 and if I think back, I can recall saying to myself that the Internet Gods have given me a great gift to be able to publish without editors telling me what's good or bad and without massive costs to reach an audience. Not only did I commit to it as a platform that fit with our business goal, but I knew that I wanted it to have that longevity as well (sorry, I won't stop Blogging any time soon).

Tortoise of hare?

Longevity doesn't happen quickly. That doesn't mean that I don't put a tremendous amount of focus on creating a sense of urgency. I want stuff to get done (and yes, I like quick wins as much as the next person). The bigger thought here is that when you're focused on longevity (for both yourself, professionally, and the brands you represent), odds are that you're going to do a lot more critical thinking and ultimately, you will be putting things into the market with a much more solid foundation and expectation for outcomes. I'm starting to think about everything in terms of longevity and the value that comes with it.

What are you after?

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wired magazine

Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?

Is it just a question of getting the facts straight when it comes to our media?

What Blogging brought forth is the notion that opinion lies neatly next to news (and that it is sometimes very difficult to tell the difference between the two). In fact, it's worth arguing that opinion is the new news. Without looking at the political sphere for examples (you get more than enough of that here on The Huffington Post and on other websites, news outlets and Blogs),what does it take create great media?

The heart of the matter.

Emotion is key to driving interest. Human beings are creatures of habits. We like being able to see the actual people who are creating our media and being able to shake their hand. In digital terms, the handshake happens by following them on Twitter and Facebook, or by checking out their LinkedIn profile and seeing if there's any videos of them on YouTube. These online social networking channels not only provide a way to connect more directly with the people who are creating the media, but they also provide a level of social proofing. While these things can be gamed, what we're seeing is a new media landscape that is less driven by facts and realities and much more driven by following those whose opinions are either like yours or share in a similar value system. Imagine that, with all of these new media channels, perhaps our perspectives are becoming that much more narrower.

Does this Blog make me look fat?

It also come from the presentation. This goes well beyond proper grammar and spelling and spills into everything from the way the text, images, audio and video stream from the screen. It has to "look good" (and yes, looking good is about as arbitrary as anything these days). Face it, you've fallen for a Blog post here or there that wasn't exactly Pulitzer material simply because it not only looked good, but was presented in a way that way pleasing to the eye. Don't believe me? The ascent in popularity of infographics has given rise to a lot of attention being doled out to some very minor players. The contents of the infographic is almost as questionable as some of the business practices being put out into the world by the business that are funding these graphic. But, they get the attention because, "hey... infographics are cool and this one has a pleasing color scheme with a lot of statistics on it!" (well-founded or otherwise).

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

In the end, the discourse will set you free. It's increasingly harder to lie, cheat and steal in a world where anyone and everyone has a platform to publish an opinion. So, while your view of what quantifies as honesty may be different from mine, the newer media channels that are experiencing both growth and profitability trend towards the ones that are being honest and not filling their publishing white space with too much hyperbole, marketing pap and industry jargon. Blogs should still amaze you - each and every day - simply because the best ones (no matter how mis-guided some of the content may be) are written from a very open, honest and transparent place (and if they are not, you will know about it by the comments that follow the blog post). With over a decade of Blogging under our global belts, it's still a new and developing form of communications and media that has yet to fully mature and find it's permanent place in the media landscape. It's unique in that the discourse that takes place within the Blog comments - or as the content streams into other channels through sharing - creates new layers that require more in-depth analysis and critique... something that most casual readers don't either the time or interest in.

So, which new media wins?

If your company is looking to publish content and own your own media channels, the content should be emotional (written from your heart), presented well (and this means both from a visual design and user interface perspective), it should be honest and - ultimately - it needs to reflect both the culture and value of the brand (and the person creating the content). It's a tall order, and (probably) the main reason why so few brands have mastered it.

As big as this all is, It's still an open opportunity, and one that most businesses still haven't formally committed to. Sadly.

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 - Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?

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