Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 352

The Wisdom Of One

Do you think that Social Media can fuel innovation?

It's a topic that Francisco Dao tackled in The Washington Post on July 29th, 2011 in an op-ed piece titled, We share too much, and it's stifling innovation: "But are the ideas of a select few really important when it comes to driving innovation? Contrary to the current zeitgeist, which dictates that the crowd is wise and innovation comes from listening to everyone's feedback, I believe breakthrough innovations -- the type that create new markets -- are typically the result of a visionary (or visionaries) who ignored the fickle whims of public opinion. These visionaries need a sounding board of like-minded individuals who can grasp their ideas. They don't need the feedback of the poorly-informed masses."

We need to be cautious about the wisdom of crowds when it comes to innovation.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs is known to have said during the development of the iPad that, "It's not the consumers' job to figure out what they want." We tend to confuse our definitions and they become these unwieldy roots that grow beneath the discourse. Social Media helps people to mobilize, share, communicate and connect. I'm not sure where (or when) anyone ever said that the masses are any good at innovating? In fact, if you look at the results of any mass innovation experiment, you don't see much. On the other hand, mass collaboration has been very successful. Would you say that the masses were responsible for the innovations that are Wikipedia or Linux? I would not. Those two ideas were brought forward by a small handful of individuals who had the innovation and the innovative idea to open it up and allow the masses to collaborate.

What comes from mass collaboration?

New ideas and new uses are the by-product of innovation (look no further than Chris Messina and how he stumbled into creating hashtags for Twitter). I wonder if we would have hashtags had Messina tweeted out, "maybe together we can think of a way to group conversations together on Twitter?" The result of that experiment would probably have failed. Much in the same way, if Guy Laliberte set up a focus group to figure out the next iteration of the circus, instead of having his own very innovative perspective that led to the creation of Cirque du Soleil. This doesn't make the masses stupid and it doesn't mean that we all live in groupthink because of Social Media. It also doesn't mean that we share too much information and it doesn't mean that all of this connectivity, sharing (and yes, oversharing) is having a stifling effect on innovation. In fact, quite the opposite.

How over-sharing drives innovation.

I would argue that innovation comes from both frustration and inspiration. We see something out in the world, we see a better way to do it that doesn't exist, so we invent it. In a world where information and ideas are now everywhere (instead of locked up in institutions like museums and dance theaters or relegated to a monthly print publication), the general masses are more exposed than ever before to ideas, information and perspectives. How could that not drive innovation? Not a day goes by that I don't see something in these digital spheres that acts as a catalyst for inspiration (and yes, I'm often frustrated with much that I experience as well). Has that led to anything truly innovative out of me? That's for others to decide, but I'm sure that Mark Zuckerburg's inspiration for Facebook came out of some type of frustration from his online experience. I'm also quite certain that Zuckerburg never had a moment of thought towards the notion that the masses would help him in the ideation of his innovation. What he discovered, ultimately, is that the masses are an amazing mechanism for making ideas spread, providing feedback (both good and bad) and giving ideation over incremental improvements, but those aren't necessarily innovations.

In the end, sharing is not going to stifle innovation. It's going to inspire it. What do you think?

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Is Advertising The Future Of Twitter?

Whenever a start-up turns to advertising for revenue, something is remiss.

There has got to be more to a business model than advertising in 2011. The fact that Twitter sees advertising as (potentially) the big revenue pay day, makes me extremely nervous. Why? Because as Twitter adds and tinkers with advertising, what they may not be considering is that the people who are engaged with Twitter are now grappling with advertising (especially if it starts to clutter their streams). It wasn't a part of the initial equation and while all good and free things need to be paid for by somebody, few people appreciate the sudden interruption that comes from advertising. In the case of Twitter, it's also an early indication that they have no clear revenue model beyond the hopes that third-party advertising will drive all monetary results.

Is advertising bad?

Of course not (and please consider the source: me... a Marketer). It's not about the efficacy of advertising as it relates to Twitter. It's much more about trying to re-imagine the power of the platform that Twitter has in front of them and perhaps the marketing and business opportunities that lie beyond the simplicity of advertising. It's clear that the threat of advertising ruining the Twitter experience is real. Look no further than the Fast Company article from yesterday titled, Can Ad-Littered Twitter Keep Its Cool?: "In 2010, Twitter pulled in just $45 million in ad revenue, according to eMarketer. Facebook, on the other hand, pulled in $1.86 billion. Founders of Twitter have been averse to traditional ads, the 'coolness' factor always an important reason why. 'The overall experience [of Promoted Tweets] will hopefully be something that's very native to the network, very relevant, and fitting along with all the other tweets you're seeing,' cofounder Biz Stone told the Associated Press last year. 'If they're not cool, we just won't show them.'"

Defining cool...

When Google first introduced AdWords, the concept made a lot of sense: if no one clicked on the ad, the advertiser didn't have to pay. As the AdWords platform evolved and became increasingly popular, the model shifted slightly with the additional pressure being put on the advertiser that if no one was clicking on their ads, they would be booted off of the system. Google's message was clear: if consumers like the ads, they'll click. If they don't like the ads, you don't have to worry because we'll remove you or force you to create a more compelling ad that will get people to click. Beyond that, Google's ads were never a part of the organic search results (they lived either on top of them or to the side). How will Twitter know what is cool? Will it be people clicking on the tweet? Retweeting it? Following the brands? Currently, the idea is that promoted tweets will only appear in the stream of people who have mentioned the brand or are somehow related or interested in the products and services.

It's still advertising... and there's so much more marketing innovation that can be done.

There is gold in the data of Twitter. Just look at what what start-ups like Reach.ly (hat-tip to Paul)  and Needium are doing. When Ad Age published the article, Twitter Gets Influx of Cash, Goes for Madison Avenue, on August 1st, 2011 my initial reaction was: "no... don't listen to what Madison Avenue is going to tell you! Don't get lured down the road of eyeballs, impressions and the glitz that goes along with it!" Much like Google (pre-AdWords), Twitter has an amazing opportunity to help us CTRL ALT DEL the world of marketing. To do something more beyond the obvious advertising. To lead in the area of marketing innovation and newer forms of advertising. What if they spent some time away from traditional advertising models (and ad agency folks) and experimented with new ways to connect brands with consumers? They just got a healthy injection of financing (see: Funding Values Twitter at $8.4 Billion), so the opportunity is now.

There's got to be something out of the $800 million that can be carved away for new business model initiatives?

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Your Meetings Suck

Meetings suck.

At around 2:00 pm on any given weekday, the same sinking feeling comes over me at the office and all I can think to myself is: "wow, I have to get out of here if I'm ever going to get any serious work done!" What has our work become? I actually have to physically leave my office and go home to get my work done (many would argue that the best place to work is on an airplane or a hotel room in a foreign city, while some of us escape to the corner Starbucks or local library). This is a common and shared experience in the workplace by almost all of us (especially those in management roles). Many of us grapple to lift our heads up from the haze that is a non-stop, full-day press of phone calls, emails and meetings. Meetings after meetings. Meeting to set-up more meetings. Meetings where the outcome is that more meetings will be required to resolve an issue. Meetings are taking over our businesses and keeping us from actually getting the work done. Meetings are the reason cartoons like Dilbert and TV shows like The Office exist (and why there are so funny... or sad). Let's face it: meetings not only suck, but meetings are sucking the life out of organizations... and they're taking our soul and desire to live along with it.

What happened here?

Weren't meetings originally created as a way for us to get things done? Weren't meetings supposed to be the place where decisions are made and the next steps are clearly communicated to the whole team? Weren't meetings supposed to be the place where a team can come together and brainstorm a better way to get the job done?

How did we get so bad at meetings and is there any way to save us?

For years, productivity experts have waxed poetic about how to create some semblance of practicality around a meeting. From more traditional approaches like integrating Robert's Rules of Order (a book intended to create an approach to running a meeting within the government) to much more creative solutions like never letting a meeting last longer than fifteen minutes or getting everyone to stand-up during the entire duration of the meeting (no chairs... no sitting down). The net result of those actions? Yup, we're all still drowning in more and more meetings, but that could all change if Al Pittampalli has anything to do with it.

"I used to work for Ernst & Young where I was an IT advisor, and I would sit in these meetings with Fortune 500 companies and it was sheer torture," says Al Pittampalli, who releases his first business book, Read This Before Our Next Meeting (published by Seth Godin's The Domino Project powered by Amazon), this week. "Instead of paying attention to what was happening in the meetings, they were so dreadful that I started paying attention to the structure of the meetings. Bad meetings are pervasive in almost all organizations, and I simply couldn't believe that nobody had figured out how to re-think the modern day meeting. I went on a quest to fix this and it's been fun for me. I love the topic and the insights that have come out of it."

The truth is that Read This Before Our Next Meeting is less of a business book and much more of a manifesto.

The 66 pages can be read in about an hour and he defines his new meeting framework like this: "The Modern Meeting supports a decision that has already been made. The Modern Meeting starts on time, moves fast, and ends on schedule. The Modern Meeting limits the number of attendees. The Modern Meeting rejects the unprepared. The Modern Meeting produces committed action plans. The Modern Meeting refuses to be informational. Reading memos is mandatory. The Modern Meeting works only alongside a culture of brainstorming."

"The heart of what this book is about is that a meeting cannot exist without a decision to support it that has already been made," declares Pittampalli. "That may sound strange at first, but it is paramount to understanding how to run a meeting in this day and age. Bad meetings have become such a huge problem all over the world because we have a decision problem. The meeting is just a symptom. When someone within an organization has a very important decision to make, that can be a very scary thing. They wind up calling a meeting instead of making a decision. In fact, a meeting is a great way to stall a decision. When you have a decision to make and you gather eight people into a room, not only does that seem productive, but it also gives the businessperson an opportunity to diffuse the responsibility of that decision across the participants in the meetings. That meeting turns into another meeting and it delays the decision to no end. I looked at the structure of that and realized that our traditional meeting system actually encourages people to stall. The only way to combat stalling is to re-define the meeting. The meeting should not make the decision. If you want to hold a meeting, you have to make a decision first, but that doesn't mean that you can't get input from others. You get that input from one on one conversations, and once you've got the proper amount of intelligence and input, then you can have the meeting. The meeting's purpose should be to possibly change your mind, but the bias of this new meeting model is to create real action."

Does that read like hyperbole? It shouldn't.

Add up all of the meetings you attended last week. Count those hours. Now, ask yourself: was it worth it? Did it make your customer's lives better? Did it help increase your overall sales? Did it make your co-worker's lives better? Meetings were never meant to be a distraction from the actual work (and that's, precisely, Pittampalli's point). Meetings are meant to be another forum for the advancement of the business. There's a reason Pittampalli has chosen the title, Meeting Culture Warrior, for his life's work (besides, it's much cooler than, "President" or "CEO").

We're at war. Not with one another or the competition. We're at war with our time, and if we let meetings - as they're currently being run - win, we all lose.

The above posting 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 - Modernizing the business meeting .

Vancouver Sun - Modernizing the business meeting.

My full audio conversation with Al Pittampalli will be released in an upcoming episode of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast .

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When It Comes To Your Work: Stay Calm

Do you follow Alain de Botton?

I was first introduced to Alain de Botton when Julien Smith (In Over Your Head and the co-author of Trust Agents along with Chris Brogan) first dropped a copy of The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work on my desk. Here's a good, general rule of thumb: if Julien Smith says something is worth reading, then read it. de Botton is not easy reading. It's deep, it's emotional and it's philosophical. All of his books are smart and de Botton's true skill is in using words to get you to think about your own existence.

We're an anxious bunch when it comes to work.

What is it about our work that makes us so stressed and worried? In this TED Talk, de Botton looks at success, anxiety and how to-rethink how you think about your work and life. It's 17 minutes... and it's worth every second...

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Power, Influence And The Social Web

Episode #264 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 just published his first business book, The Tao of Twitter, so beyond a conversation about why the world needs another book about Twitter, we also spent a boatload of time discussing and dissecting power, influence and the Social Web. While you may have read or heard about this topic before, the landscape continues to evolve and we dive much deeper (well beyond the value of Klout scores and the ROI of a Facebook "like") into the murky waters of presumed compliance and more. 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 #264.

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digital dads

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #58

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:

Stealing Ideas - Structural Knowledge . "Aaron Swartz, a fellow at Harvard's Center for Ethics , was recently accused of stealing from MIT 's JSTOR archive of academic journals. This wasn't just downloading: Swartz is alleged to have gone to great lengths to circumvent anti-copying mechanisms, and to have liberated 'extraordinary' amounts of content. It's not the RIAA , and it's not WikiLeaks . But it's another example of how an industry predicated on information arbitrage - academic journals (whose value comes largely from their exclusivity) - is going to great lengths to delay the inevitable decay of its stranglehold on knowledge. This piece from Structural Knowledge underscores just how much restricted access thwarts innovation. 'None of us want to break the law,' says author Kevin Webb. 'It's simply that we don't have a choice.'" (Alistair for Hugh).

Model predicts 'religiosity gene' will dominate society - Physorg . "A good friend of mine is about to give birth. Among secular couples I know, she's one of a few having a child much later in life. On the other hand, members of more religious cultures tend to breed early and often. This suggests that tomorrow's human race will tend towards believers, according to Dr. Roger Rowthorn  (professor emeritus of economics at Cambridge ), who turned an observation about Amish breeding patterns into a broader study of believers and non-believers. I'd link to the original paper in, The Proceedings Of The Royal Society Of Biological Sciences , but of course, you need access to academic journals for that. Sigh." (Alistair for Mitch).

Examining The Outrageous Aaron Swartz Indictment For Computer Fraud - Litigation & Trial . "Aaron Swartz is a hacker, co-creator of RSS , co-founder of Reddit and most recently a data activist, working on open government and data access issues. He spends time looking at big datasets (eg 400,000 law review articles which he searched to find sources of funding in order to better understand how funding influences legal thinking). Swartz recently got charged by the US Department of Justice for computer fraud - for allegedly downloading millions of academic articles hosted by the journal archive, JSTOR - a service to which he had legal access. He is charged with fraud (with a possible jail term of 35 years) for violating the Terms of Service of a website. Legal opinion suggests this should be treated as a civil case; instead the DOJ is pursuing criminal charges, and there is speculation that this case is part of the US government's new hostile policy against 'hackers.'" (Hugh for Alistair).

Apple has moved on - asymco . " Apple Inc ., circa 2007 (pre- iPhone ) was a very different company than Apple Inc. circa 2011 (post iPhone and iPad ). But the scale in the change is jaw-dropping. Desktops and portable computers have held steady as a business line - growing very nicely thank you very much - for Steve and his team in Cupertino. But, computers are now just a fraction of Apple's business (about 25%, compared with about 70% coming from iOS devices)." (Hugh for Mitch).

Sex, Lies and Data Mining - The New York Times Sunday Book Review . "What happens when you mix web analytics, two computational neuroscientists and a desire to know what people really want when it comes to sex? You get a book called, A Billion Wicked Thoughts by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam . And you thought it was hard to figure out what both and men and women really want from sex? For the longest time I've said that we tell things to a search engine box that we would never share with our spouses, family members and closest friends. If you really want to know how freaky we are as a people, I guess you'll have to buy the book." (Mitch for Alistair).

"It will be good exposure." - Seth Godin . "How often are you asked to speak or write an article for free? The challenge is always in figuring out if the value of the activity is worth it. If the promise is that it will lead to more work, I usually just go with this answer: 'I'm a very ethical person, so let's agree to pay me my full fee and if any client work comes out of this, I am happy to return my fee.' This usually sends the people trying to benefit from a freebie away and it works equally well for those with a genuine offer. In the end, the hard part is figuring out what is good self-promotion, what is good business, and when you're being taken advantage of." (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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aaron swartz

academic journal

alistair croll

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the proceedings of the royal society of biological sciences

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wikileaks

year one labs

The Haters

The Haters will tell you...

Blogging doesn't have a ROI.

A tweet is worthless.

Getting someone to "like" your Facebook page doesn't increase your sales.

A viral video may get millions of views, but there is no economic value to it.

Marketing your business on LinkedIn is a huge waste of time.

No one will switch over from Facebook to Google +.

People don't use branded apps.

Search Engine Marketing is loosing its luster.

Nobody listens to Podcasts anymore.

Social Media doesn't provide enough exposure for a brand.

Not enough people are using mobile to make it worth the investment for a brand at this point.

...and the hits just keep on coming.

The truth is that The Haters are right. You actually don't need anything in the above list to be successful in Marketing. There are many very well-respected and well-earning brands that don't use any of the channels and platforms above and they're doing quite fine, thank you very much. There are also many brands who are doing everything above and not experiencing any kind of significant success from where they were prior to getting engaged in the digital channels.

It sounds like heresy.

Hardly. Success in Digital Marketing (and here's a bigger hint: success in anything) is not about the averages or the individuals. Success is about the framework that you create. The brands that struggle to uncover ROI in Digital Marketing are usually lacking the right mental framework (the other challenge is that they're often brands that are simply not all that interesting to people, or that the brands aren't doing anything interesting that is worthy of the audience's attention).

What does a "mental framework" look like?

It has nothing to do with attitude or posture, it has to do with leveraging your corporate strategy to create a series of business outcomes and choosing the right channels and platforms that can get you there with the best efficacy. The challenge is that most brands will not (do not) create a new mental framework. Instead, they base everything on frameworks of the past. It's a choice to believe and follow this new mental framework. Change is hard.

What does this the old mental framework sound like?

"If I make a video on YouTube , I want it to do better than my TV advertising."

"We want to make a Facebook Page, but we need it to tie-into our out-of-home advertising."

"If I put the time into Twitter , I need it to do more for me than my weekly flyers in the newspaper."

"The money I spend on building an app could be used instead to create a contest."

...and the hits just keep on coming.

It's not that comparing your lines of media is a bad idea. It's that comparing anything to lines of media that been delivering diminishing returns (and based on old mental frameworks) is a bad idea. It's also that by doing any form of comparison that is not "apples to apples" will always lead you to one answer: doing the same thing that you were doing before. New business models are weird because they look weird, feel weird, act weird and react weird. We're humans. Our natural instinct is to be avoid anything and everything weird. We tend to learn the hard way (and often) that the new weird is (sometimes) the new norm.

A personal tale of weird:

My career started as a professional journalist (when I say "professional," I mean "paid"). Blogging seems like the most counterintuitive strategy ever (write a lot more, much more frequently, respond to as many people as you can, promote an entirely new publishing channel... all for free). Removing the averages and the individuals, Blogging was the smartest strategy I have deployed for my own, professional development to date. In fact, when I started Blogging, I had left professional journalism. I was already the President of Twist Image, and as a Digital Marketing agency, I was leveraging the platform (and my passion for writing) to share my thoughts on the new Digital Marketing landscape. It was very weird to be writing so much for free. If you're reading this, you know how the story ends. Along with the visibility and credibility that this Blog continues to build for our agency, it has also propelled me back into journalism (and yes, in many instances, I am being paid to write articles and columns for magazines, newspapers and websites). While I don't write for the money (the exposure and experience is much more valuable at this point), the whole experience of changing my values from, "my words are worth money and I should be paid to write," to "while writing may bring me a comfortable income, perhaps Blogging can be a pillar in building wealth" was a new mental framework that definitely felt weird (and sometimes, it still does).

The Haters want things to stay the way they are/the way they were.

Most businesspeople don't want change (most people don't want change). They're busy spending their time trying to figure out how to make the old ways of working work more effectively. New mental frameworks are always about trying to bring progress. Personally, that was always the vision of everything you see being published and the work we're trying to do at Twist Image: it's about bringing progress to the Marketing industry. The Haters aren't looking for progress. The Haters are looking at the averages... and who wants to be average?

What do you think?

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Not Buying What You're Shilling

Transparency and full disclosure don't mean much in the world of Social Media anymore.

Do you remember when the FTC got involved in Social Media (more on that here: Mashable - FTC to Fine Bloggers up to $11,000 for Not Disclosing Payments)? There was a lot of public discourse on the matter and my general sentiment can be summed up like this: if certain companies within an industry are doing something that requires government intervention to get them to stop, there's a problem. At first strike, penalizing Bloggers because they're not disclosing if they're being compensated by a brand seems somewhat petty in the grand scheme of things that the FTC should really be focusing on, but they may have been on to something.

Social Media can be very disturbing.

Social Media is pervasive. Just look at Facebook's statistics, the use of Twitter, Blogs and whatever else. Many people now command an audience and they are broadcasters (in some way, shape or form). There were two Twitter moments today that made me stop in my tracks and realize that many people are willing shills, not that clear about disclosing it and, ultimately, are quite boring when they are shilling. In one instance someone was discussing a food brand and asking people to retweet it (yawn...). In another, an individual was tweeting up an event they were attending as a paid Social Media spokesperson (but if you didn't know they were being paid, it was kind of hard to tell).

It fails because the brands have no Social Media credibility.

This is noting new. In fact, I Blogged about a similar topic in 2008 titled, Trust Is Non-Transferable. Brands get two major things wrongs when enlisting people from within the Social Media channels to do their bidding:

Brands assume that they will be trusted because the person talking about them has a trusted community. Trust in non-transferable. It has to be earned.

Brands assume that all tweets, Blog posts, YouTube videos, etc... are all created equal. Not true. There are hundreds of people who I trust. People I am connected to. All of their tweets and Blog posts are not created equal. Each one is judged independently from the others. The ones that smell like shills are shills.

What's a brand to do?

Embrace a Marketing mentality. When you engage in these Social Media activities, don't treat it like an advertising campaign. You're trying to build valuable and long-term relationships.

Trust takes time. Credibility takes even longer. Just because you've enlisted an evangelist, it doesn't mean that a brand has any semblance of credibility within that community.

Don't expect the evangelists' community to be your community. In the end, those tweets and Blog posts that you're compensating the individual for may be falling on totally deaf ears.

Don't make people your mules. There seems to be this "drug mule" mentality with brands. They figure if someone else can do their bidding, it will seem authentic and real.

Get real. Engage with Social Media because you have a propensity to have an authentic and direct relationship with your consumer. Don't do this as a thinly-veiled Marketing ploy.

It's alarming how many credible individuals are suddenly shifting their values and selling out their community (and their credibility) to the highest bidder.

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The 10 Trends In Technology You Must Pay Attention To

"Technology" is always a funny word for Marketers. While some are starting to embrace it, the majority of Marketing Professionals are scared of technology.

Following technology and tech trends has always been a key area of interest for me, personally. From the early days of personal computing to the first modems and connectivity, I've had a love affaire (no, geek affaire?) with technology, gadgets and the evolution of connectivity. When new platforms come out (like Google +), I feel more informed when I spend time understanding what the technology analysts think about it (along with the marketing and communications professionals).

Don't believe the hype.

The challenge comes in how you filter the information (because there is so much of it) and how to stay away from the hyperbole versus those who are looking at the data and opportunity. I knew the name, , tangentially through some random news items, but his recent presentation, , at The Paley Center for Media hit on so many thoughts I have been grappling with about technology and media (hat-tip to Bob Lefsetz for pointing this presentation out to me).

Spend the next hour with this presentation (it will give you fresh insights and perspectives).

I know how valuable your time is, so trust me when I say that this 50 minute presentation will be worth your time...

Tags:

10 hypotheses for technology innovation

bob lefsetz

communications

connectivity

google plus

information filter

marketer

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media

personal computing

presentation



tech

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technology

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technology trends

the paley center for media

The Me Media

What makes the New Media interesting?

For some, it's the many new voices who can now find an audience. Whether it's a Blog, Podcast or Twitter feed, the New Media is less about the consumption of content and aimed much closer to the reality that anyone who has something to say can now publish their thoughts - in text, images, audio and video - instantly for the world to see (and it costs next-to-nothing). Along with that comes an equalized back and forth with the audience. It's that pure concept that drives the thinking and revision of definitions of media and journalism by people like Clay Shirky, Jay Rosen, Jeff Jarvis and others. The real question about New Media is this:

Is New Media really something new and different or is traditional media working hard to bend it to their will?

In the landmark business book, The Cluetrain Manifesto (co-written by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger), the concepts of audience, media, brands and broadcasting were dismantled and redefined. Many see The Cluetrain Manifesto (which was written in 1999 and published in 2000 - yes, over eleven years ago) as the genesis of Social Media. The book was written around 95 theses, and it's numbers 37 to 39 that shine a light on the struggles that New Media have to gain true respect:

37. If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.

38. Human communities are based on discourse -- on human speech about human concerns.

39. The community of discourse is the market.

Does that sound like traditional mass media and journalism?

Traditional media still prides itself on some very traditional values:

The ability to give the audience not what they want, but what certain editors feel the audience needs to hear.

Quality production - from slick video cuts to super-human voiceovers.

A place where advertisers can confidently intersperse their messages.

Talent that acts as if it is above the audience, instead of a part of it (how often do journalists take part in their own discourse?).

Quick, short and snackable pieces of content for an ever-busy audience.

New Media prides itself on different values:

A platform for anyone to share what is of interest to them.

There is no audience - in the traditional sense of the word. The audience is a community with a shared interest in the discourse and growth of the community.

Quality production - but one that is based on the human voice and feel instead of a manufactured/generic one. The truth is that production can even be less than stellar so long as the quality of the content and discourse stands.

A place where advertisers can confidently intersperse their message to a highly engaged and caring audience.

Talent (or the creators of the content) are nothing without the community. If those two are not intrinsically connected, the platform fails.

The content can be quick and short, but it can also be in long-form. Digital removes the challenges previous established by the media in terms of page size, show length and limitations of the like.

One media is based on rules. The other media is based on passion.

What if we abolished the concept of "New Media"? Could we not say that we have "mass media" and that we have "me media"? If you look at mass media's attention to these new media and social media platforms, what we find is - more often than not - a copy/paste job. They take what they've published or broadcasted to the masses and simply dump it on a website or turn it into a Podcast. In turn, if you look at the newer media platforms (yes, I would include The Huffington Post in this lot), what you see is something completely different. Where else could something like Lost At E Minor live? This popular online publication looks at pop culture through the lens of art, design music, photography and memes. The discourse lives within the sharing of the content to other platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc...) and within the comments. The culmination of this content drags the audience members to other links of interest and thinking around the topic. While some traditional media outlets have integrated many of this functionality, it's worth wondering if they've done so out of an understanding of how media has changed or as a reaction and financial need to seem relevant (yes, things have changed since the ascent of Blogging, but not much).

It's a media posture change.

As traditional mass media leverages Social Media as an extension of the distribution network to increase audience and the advertising that goes along with it, the Me Media publishers of the day see the opportunity to build a new culture around areas of interest, that are discussed and debated in a human voice with the raison d'être to have a laser-like focus on the discourse. While the Me Media culture synchronizes almost perfectly to the vision laid out in The Cluetrain Manifesto, traditional media companies may have adapted their content and newsrooms for these new channels, but still, fundamentally, struggle with the new media posture as core to their culture and business.

This begs the question: will the future of media be about the size of the audience or the value of the discourse?

The above posting is my just-launched/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 Me Media.

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