Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 369

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #35

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, 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:

Space Stasis - Slate . "I've been a huge fan of Neal Stephenson since I first read his stuff. Over the years, I've bought more than a dozen copies of Snow Crash for others, so it's a treat when he writes something... and this is no exception. Here, he looks at the way rockets have changed - or haven't - over time. It's reminiscent of James Burke 's take on where new ideas come from." (Alistair for Hugh).

Completely Impossible Pictures - Luke Tech Tips . "I try hard to find erudite, thought-provoking, highbrow stuff for these links. But sometimes the Internet is about cool pictures. In an era where photoshopping is an accusation of subterfuge, it's great to see it being put to such good use. These images by Swedish artist Erik Johansson are remarkably creative, and just plain fun to look at." (Alistair for Mitch).

Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail? - Rolling Stone . "I think this will be my last weekly link about the economic collapse, but I could not resist this one. Read it... and weep." (Hugh for Alistair).

Margaret Atwood - "The Publishing Pie: An Author's View" - YouTube . "I was at O'Reilly's Tools of Change for Publishing conference this past week, and a highlight was Margaret Atwood's wry and lovely keynote." (Hugh for Mitch).

Innovating with Business Data - Technology Review . "Business keeps getting bigger. Data keeps getting bigger. At some point soon, those two worlds are going to collide in a much bigger way than they ever have before. In this eight-minute video, Erik Brynjolfsson (director of the MIT Center for Digital Business ) talks about the potential for businesses to really have innovative breakthroughs through IT... and for cheap." (Mitch for Alistair).

How Bill Gates' Favorite Teacher Wants to Disrupt Education - Fast Company . "Nothing interests me more than how we can use the Internet to make us all smarter. This hyper-interconnectivity is incredible, but the truth is that we have not even begun to scratch the surface on what we can do (better and cheaper) to change our world. One of the biggest areas of opportunity is education. If you've never heard of Khan Academy, this article will make you re-think everything you ever thought about education." (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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The Time Has Come For The Marketing Hacker

"Measure twice, cut once."

It's a known practice in the carpentry and construction business. The idea is fairly simple: by measuring your raw materials twice before you cut it down and try to fix it into place, you are better insuring that you didn't make a mistake in the measurement, and that the plank of wood is going to fit rather than discovering that you have to start all over again. Mistakes are costly. It's not only the time it takes to redo all of the physical labor, there's also the expense of the materials and the waste on our environment.

It would be great if Marketers adapted this ideology to our profession.

I recently read that a company is attempting to make banner ads more social. This gave rise to one thought: If banners ads were any good, people would react to them. Their desire to share them would be uncontrollable. All great advertising is inherently social. 

Back to "the big idea."

In August of 2009, I Blogged about the death of the big idea (you can read more about that here: Maybe It Is Time For Marketing To Move Away From "The Big Idea"). It caused some controversy and stirred some strong sentiment in the comments section - which is understandable. Marketers often think like Carpenters who don't adhere to the "measure twice, cut once" credo. Marketers have a nasty habit of dumping ads (the same ones - in different formats) in any place and every place that a set of eyes might find and as frequently as possible. They don't do the measuring to ensure that the type of Marketing that they're doing actually fits/makes sense for the channel. Digital Marketing is the perfect example of this. The current state of online advertising works like this: "here's a page (it can be a website, Blog post, mobile app, etc...) that many people interact with - let's put an ad (or many of them!) on it."

Why not do the right thing for the right thing?

I love Google's advertising platform because it is the right thing for the right thing. The advertising/marketing fits the platform. When someone does a simple search, advertisers who have a relevant message can place their "ad" in front of them on the condition that the ad has a look and feel that fits the platform (which Google enforces). If no one clicks on the ad, not only does the advertiser not pay, but the ad has a likelihood of being removed (Google wants ads that work - for both their advertisers and their users).

This is where advertisers fall down.

As integrated and new media as many of these traditional advertising agencies have become in the past short while, let's not forget what they're really efficient at: creating one message and repeating it everywhere... and constantly. At the end of the day, ad agencies are great at creating advertising driven by that one big idea and repeating that message everywhere. I believe that Digital Marketing is about thinking about this differently. Digital Marketing is about many messages (and stories) in many different places (or, as I call it, "many big ideas"). It can be text, images, audio, video and it can be in the form of content, contest, advertising or conversation. The line is not as clear as simply saying, "it's online advertising." Because it's not (which is why I have a big thing for transmedia and Digital Storytelling). Digital Marketing has made advertising much more complex. To wit, advertising must adapt, step up, mature and figure out its real place in this new marketing mix. How Marketers start to embrace and noodle with this idea of making sure that the thing (they're advertising) is good for the thing (the platform) they're placing it in will dictate how the industry truly evolves. If you're a Marketer and you don't think the situation is dire, you may want to read the Fast Company article, The Future Of Advertising (November 2010).

What the world needs now is more Marketing Hackers. 

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A Deeper Shade Of Blue

The lower east side of Manhattan was buzzing and unlike any other usual New York City summer night, you walk fast.

You zig and you zag as if where you're heading is your ultimate and final destination in life. The city is tough. It feels very self-involved. It's a Billy Joel song. It can feel like a clenched fist. On this particular Wednesday night in July 2009, it was even harder to keep my wits about me. I had just finished the sold-out public launch of my business book, Six Pixels of Separation, and my literary agent was whisking a small group of us to a private dinner to celebrate. As one of the few non-New Yorkers, I struggled to keep walking pace with people who regularly chew up 5th Avenue the same way most of us exercise in the morning. The pace was more intense because I was deep in discussion with Stephen Baker. My head was spinning... I'm a big Stephen Baker fan.

You don't know Stephen?

At the time, Baker was a Senior Writer for BusinessWeek, had launched the seminal BusinessWeek Blog, Blogspotting (along with Associate Editor, Heather Green), and had just published the amazingly interesting book, The Numerati - which looked at how some of the smartest people in the world were leveraging mathematics, data and analytics to alter human behavior. To say that I was "boxing out of my weight class" would have been an understatement. I must have held my own because Stephen and I not only enjoyed some great food and drinks together with our group that night, but we stayed connected. In the spirit of Valentine's Day this week, it seems like the perfect opportunity to see what Baker's latest passion project is all about.

Computer vs. Human Being.

"IBM's Deep Blue computer beat Gary Kasparov in 1997 in chess," said Baker via Skype chat late last week. "If you think about chess as a game, it's a limited domain... which is saying something, because there are still billions of possibilities within the limitation of a 64-square board, whereas Jeopardy involves knowledge, which is limitless and language, which is limitlessly complex. IBM had to teach this machine they called, 'Watson', to understand very strange and puzzling Jeopardy clues and then to go and hunt - within its own database - to not only find the right answer, but to bet on it with a strong game strategy in a very limited amount of time. Watson does all of that. It's entertaining to watch."

Jeopardy - The IBM Challenge .

You may have seen the television commercials for Jeopardy - The IBM Challenge (the three-part television event started airing yesterday, February 14th, 2011). You may have seen the PBS Nova documentary, Smartest Machine On Earth, on it. You may have read something about this new supercomputer in these pages over the past little while. Well, Baker, literally, wrote the book on it. Final Jeopardy - Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, tells the behind-the-scenes story of how IBM's new supercomputer, Watson, would challenge two of Jeopardy's greatest all-time champions (Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter) to see if a computer can actually beat a human (or two).

And no, this isn't just a parlor trick with a faster computer that's better at using Google than you are...

"That wouldn't be fair," laughs Baker who released a digital version of the book, Final Jeopardy, a few weeks ago that was missing the last chapter (which will only be sent once the final episode of Jeopardy has aired). "Just like other player's on Jeopardy, Watson has to have the information in its 'head,' so no... it's not a machine that can manipulate Google faster or better than someone else. Google actually works with our brains - not as a brain. People input on average three words into Google that creates a parameter around a bunch of web pages, and the user has to use it's own brain power to not only choose those words, but then to figure out what the results are that were spit back to it. You use your brain before and after with Google. Watson does this all itself. It makes sense of the words, searches out the answer, calculates the exact answer and then goes into the gaming mechanics."

This all begs the question: what is it about human beings and our desire to create something that is bigger, better, smarter and strong than us?

Baker thinks that this may have something to do with the fact that we - as a species - feel somewhat alone in this universe. "We put ourselves to work to make these friends," he suggests. "If you look at history, we've been making and building machines to augment and replace our limbs - tools of steel and steam power - which have lead to wheels and cars and wings and airplanes. We have done all sorts of things to augment our body, strength and movement, and now with the information age, we're moving to the head and brain. We started with calculators, but now we're in the realm of words and knowledge, because we are starting to have machines that are powerful enough to do this sort of thing."  

While there is no current business application for Watson, it's clear that this type of computational thinking has tremendous business potential (at some point in the future).

This could well-be the future of search, it could be what a true business assistant might look like or just the very beginning of true artificial intelligence. Currently, Baker says Watson is the equivalent of 2800 computers working together and that it fills an entire refrigerated room with way too many algorithms that run at multiple times. According to Baker, the producers of Jeopardy actually built the set around Watson's infrastructure and brought the set, crew and talent to IBM to film the three-episode escapade. Ultimately, it is instances like this that force us to think about a moment in time where Watson (or something like it) is able to replace human beings to become the ultimate employee?

Does Watson actually think like a human being?

"When discussing a machine that behaves in certain ways like a human, it's very hard to divorce it from human processes," Baker said in a recent Blog post. "This was a struggle for me in the book... it could be argued that Watson does not think, know, or remember. I tried to avoid attributing those words to it in the book. It does, by contrast, process, calculate, recall, and estimate. You can analyze Watson's information processing and debate whether it actually thinks. I've gotten into those discussions, but I don't dwell on them in the book. It's 'thinking,' if that's what you want to call it, is very different than ours."

Rise Machines. Rise.

I believe they said the same thing about the HAL 9000 in 2001 - A Space Odyssey or any computer that became self-aware and then reaped devastation on humanity from movies like The Matrix and The Terminator to scores of Science Fiction novels. Baker assures me that unlike those technologies, Watson is still fairly neutered. "We won't see that in our lifetime," he laughed.

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 - A Deeper Shade Of Blue .

Vancouver Sun - not yet published.

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Why You Should Write A Book

There are a lot of books that have already been written about Social Media. There's really not that much more to say...

Those two sentences may sounds like a truism, but they are not. It also doesn't matter whether we're talking about Social Media, cooking, history, economics, business, romance, science fiction or even mystery, if you have something to say, and you feel that the medium of a book would act as the ideal platform to get your ideas across, then nothing should stop you. The world doesn't need another Social Media book, but the world desperately needs a new Social Media book by you.

Do you understand the nuance?

There are many books about many topics out there, but there are zero books out there with your perspective on it... and that's what people are buying. The same can be said about a painting or a song. Do you really think the world needs another song (especially after listening to the catalogue of The Beatles work)? Are you even capable of painting something that is worthy of being hung in a museum or a gallery? If you follow the prescription that there are too many books about any particular topic out in the market and that there's not much more to say, your art will never fully be realized and the world quickly becomes a less creative space.

People make this mistake every day.

Nearly three years ago, a well-known Public Relations celebrity was giving a presentation right before me. After the event we were discussing book publishing as the news of my deal (for Six Pixels of Separation) had just broke in the publishing trades. This individual (who shall remain nameless) quipped that they had been offered multiple book publishing deals but opted against them because they too had felt that there were already too many books out on the topic. This was three years ago... imagine how many more books have been published on the topic. Just look at the success of Gary Vaynerchuk's Crush It or Chris Brogan and Julien Smith's Trust Agents... and what it has done to their respective careers.

Beyond adding your unique perspective to the world of publishing, there are countless other reasons why you should write a book:

It forces you to think in a much deeper context. If a book is nothing more than a bunch of articles or Blog posts, it's not really a book... it's a compilation. The true act of sitting down, structuring and framing a complete book is a much deeper thought process.

It will give your business more clarity. That deep context from the last point leads into clarity. All of the research, writing and mind exploring usually gives you a perspective on your industry that your peers have never spent the time trying to explore and define.

It establishes you as a credible authority. Clients and potential clients still feel that the act of writing a book and getting it formally published is an act of credibility. I, too, believe that people who have published works have more credibility in the marketplace.

It's a great business card. It's a great thank you card.

It doesn't have to be physical. Even self-publishing an ebook can be enough, just be sure to get a good editor or someone to help you find the right flow and structure.

It gets you exposure in places you may have never had access to. I can't tell you how many times a week I get an email from someone who picked up my book and read it because they discovered it in an airport bookstore or at a shop in the mall. These are places where my Blog and the marketing materials of Twist Image can never reach.

Strategic by-products happen all of the time. Someone sees the book and thinks to call me about something else and this turns into a business opportunity that would have never happened had it not been for the book being present in people's lives.

Crap is crap. None of this matters if you publish something poorly. I'm assuming it's not just your perspective, but a well-written and well-thought-out personal perspective.

If you don't write it, someone else will.

Ultimately, new books come out each day because someone takes a new perspective (their slant) on things. The bad news is that you didn't write a book because you assumed that their take is the same as your take (it's not... bad assumption). This isn't about getting everyone to publish a book on the same topic. This Blog post is much more about doing things that can help you grow - for your own personal development and for your business. If a book will help you accomplish that, there's no reason not to write one... unless you don't believe that you have a unique perspective.

Please don't take your art with you to the grave. There is nothing sadder.

(this was inspired by Ari Herzog's Blog post, If I Wrote A Book, and the comments that went along with it).

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Here's Your Final Jeopardy Question: Who Is Smarter Humans Or Machines?

Episode #240 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

Stephen Baker has written two amazingly fascinating business book. His latest is titled, Final Jeopardy - Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything. Starting tomorrow (February 14th, 2011) there will be a special TV event titled, Jeopardy - The IBM Challenge. In these three episodes, IBM's latest supercomputer, Watson, will challenge two of Jeopardy's biggest champions. Who is smarter? Man or machine? have we come to the point in time where artificial intelligence is truly a reality? Baker had unprecedented access to IBM and their development team. It truly is an incredible story for the ages. Baker is also the author of The Numerati and was a former senior editor at BusinessWeek who also helped launched Blogspotting. 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 #240.

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The Social Media Week That Was

Last week was Social Media Week. If you weren't a part of it (or following along at home/online), you missed some gems.

One of the stand-out sessions took place in New York. The session was called, Participation, Aggregation and Criticism in the Digital Age, and was hosted by Ian Schafer from Deep Focus (I should note that Ian will be an upcoming guest on the Six Pixels of Separation podcast and we will both be delivering keynote addresses at the upcoming Media Bistro event, Socialize, March 31st - April 1st in New York City). Schafer managed to pull together quite the start-studded panel to discuss how Social Media is challenging (and changing) business' rules of engagement.

The panelist for Participation, Aggregation and Criticism in the Digital Age include:

Jonah Peretti - Founder of BuzzFeed and Huffington Post.

Jay Rosen - press critic, writer, and professor of journalism at New York University.

Danielle Sacks - award-winning senior writer, Fast Company Magazine.

Jamal Henderson - Brand Manager, PepsiCo.

The event was streamed live (for free) around the world and is now available for your viewing pleasure below...

Watch live streaming video from smw_newyork_jwt at livestream.com

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the huffington post

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #34

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, 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:

St Matthew Island - Recombinant Records . " Stuart McMillen created this thought-provoking infographic about the introduction of a dominant foreign species to an Alaskan island, and the terrifying toll of population collapse (explained in more detail, but less fun, elsewhere). It's a lesson we'll likely learn too late, but somehow his art makes it feel like a Christmas card." (Alistair for Hugh).

Data intelligence firms proposed a systematic attack against WikiLeaks - The Tech Herald . "Last week, I was at Strata (the inaugural O'Reilly conference on Big Data, ubicomp, and new interfaces). It was a fascinating week. One day, we heard from the Guardian 's Simon Rogers about meeting Julian Assange and turning leaked cables into interactive interfaces; the next, from companies like Palantir on how their technology can be used to find bad guys. So imagine my surprise when I read this piece on how soon-to-be-leaked Bank of America hired Palantir and others to attack Wikileaks' proponents and supporters. There's a data war brewing between those with secrets and those who crave access. This is what it looks like." (Alistair for Mitch).

How Tech Tools Transformed New York's Sex Trade - Wired . "Sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh tracked the business habits of the sex trade in Manhattan, from 1991 to 2010. Things have changed, mostly because of technology. This short article - with fascinating stats and infographics - gives a broad picture of a huge change.  Reading this, I was struck by something: a similar story could surely be told about musicians, authors, and journalists. I'd love to see a Wired article on how the lives of media producers have changed between 1991 to 2010." (Hugh for Alistair).

Thanks For The Memorex - Art Forum . "Old technologies never die, they just get adopted by hipsters. If you are of a certain age, the cassette *was* music. Cassettes were cheap, they were portable, and they were easy to copy. I remember my first dual cassette deck - what joy. I'd borrow tapes from friends and 'dub' them.  It started with 80s AM Radio cheese - Phil Collins, Chicago, Corey Hart, etc... A couple of years later, the cool stuff was 60s music: Led Zeppelin , The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Band and CSNY. And then of course, the mixed tape. When I was 11, an older friend with an older brother gave me a mixed tape with The Clash and The Specials. It remains my formative musical experience. Even into my university years and beyond, we were making mixed tapes of Canadian indies: Rheostatics, Skydiggers, Spirit of the West, with a bit of Rush thrown in for fun. How many hours did I spend with my music collection (tapes and CDs - LPs always sounded too scratchy when you recorded them to cassette) laid out on my parents' living room floor, planning out the perfect progression only to change course mid stream - picking out that obscure B-side track just to prove your metal..." (Hugh for Mitch).

Gladwell Still Missing the Point About Social Media and Activism - Gigaom . "The debate about whether or not Social Media really does affect major change in our world has become an ever hotter debate since best-selling author, Malcolm Gladwell ( Blink , The Tipping Point , Outliers , etc...) wrote his column, Small Change , for The New Yorker back in October of 2010 (he followed it up recently with a Blog post titled, Does Egypt Need Twitter? ). Many of the more digital-connected media pundits (and this includes people like Don Tapscott ) thought Gladwell got it all wrong. In this piece, my friend, Mathew Ingram , takes Gladwell to task as well. I recently presented on the same stage as Gladwell at an Art of Management event and we wound up debating this exact topic during a VIP lunch. Gladwell believes that Social Media does not create strong enough ties/links that can lead to such dramatic change, but that Social Media is great for speeding up the organization and connecting the weaker ties between people. The truth probably lies somewhere in between both sides of the argument. That being said, it's hard to deny the power of Social Media when you consider that we can we can finally say, 'Hosni-you-later!'" (Mitch for Alistair). 

Web Words That Lure the Readers - The New York Times . "In the pre-Internet world, what drew a reader in? It was usually a compelling headline, maybe a photo and/or a thought-provoking piece of content. Quality Journalism always rose to the top. It still does, right? Maybe not. Whether or not The Huffington Post has the highest quality of journalism probably plays a distant  (very distant) second to the fact that it rocks the search engines. You don't hear many people really talking about how important search engine optimization still is to draw a reader in. In you're looking for news on the unraveling of Egypt's government, who gets the traffic/attention? The best journalism or the publication that has the best SEO? Don't kid yourself, AOL  spent $315 on The Huffington Post not because of the writers, but because of the traffic (which is mostly directed to the site through great search engine optimization). Welcome to the new world where quality of journalism and search engine optimization have equally important roles." (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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alistair croll

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bank of america

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the new york times

the new yorker

the specials

the tech herald

the tipping point

the who

twitter

ubicomp

wikileaks

wired

year one labs

It's Not Me... It's You

When two people get tired of one another, it doesn't take long for the break-up to occur. Why should Social Media be any different?

If you're in any kind of relationship, you're well aware of the delicate intricacies and the dynamics that take place for everything to work smoothly. The best of relationships are the ones that can survive the rocky times and the relationships that last throughout time are the ones where both parties understand not only the emotional intelligence of one another but are willing to make concessions for the sake of the relationship (and yes, this often includes major personal sacrifices). When brands say that because of Social Media, they would like to have a relationship with a customer, you have to wonder if they're really using the same kind of definition as the one applied to our personal relationships? If you dig a little deeper, it feels like they would just like their customers to buy more from them and be more loyal to them.

Real interactions between real human beings.

This is what makes Social Media so different from other kinds of connections, communications and marketing opportunities. Historically, there hasn't been that many brands who have really been able to make these relationships work - in the truest sense of the definition. Yesterday, Marketing Charts, published the news item, Overposting Drives Away Facebook Fans. "Virtually tying overposting as a top reason for unliking a brand on Facebook is having an overcrowded wall (43%, more than one answer permitted). Other leading reasons include content becoming boring and/or repetitive (38%), and only liking a company to take advantage of a one-time offer (26%)." And with that information from a new Exact Target and CoTweet report, we also learn that: "Fifty-five percent of Facebook users have liked a company and then decided they no longer wanted to see its posts. In addition, 51% say they rarely or never visit a brand once they have liked it. A full 71% of fans say they have become more selective about what brands they like." 

Is this a surprise to anyone?

If another human being shows interest in you, the last thing you should do - if you're really trying to build a long-term relationship with them - is to smother them (physically, emotionally and verbally). The best of relationships take time (slow and steady)... and that's the major challenge: brands (and Marketers) just can't help themselves. The moment they see something working, they see it like a stuffed sack of potatoes that they just can't help but keep stuffing until it bursts.

The ray of sunshine...

"Report data show that a consumer's decision to 'unlike' a company has surprisingly little impact on the perceived likelihood that they will buy from that company in the future. In total, 63% of consumers said they were as likely or more likely to purchase something from a company after ending their Facebook relationship. Another 18% said they only 'unlike' a company if they never bought anything in the first place."

The Social Break-up.

What's the lesson? Relationships that truly mean something are tough to build and are a difficult balancing act to maintain. The real challenge for brands in overcoming this is to understand that they don't "own" the customer anymore. It's much more of a reciprocated relationship than ever before, so if there's not a lot of value (equally, across both parties), we're going to get scary results like this. The next phase? Let's find the brands that run anathema to this report and dig in to deep to help explain to everyone else what they're doing right and why consumers stay so connected to them.

The Social Break-up is something we have to pay close attention to.

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the social break-up

The Interactive Imperative

Forget everything you read online. Forget about whether or not you should be more engaged on Twitter or Facebook . Forget about The Huffington Post being sold to AOL for $315 milion. Ask yourself this: is your brand really and truly interactive?

The difference between traditional media channels and the digital channels (Web, Mobile, Tablet-Touch) happens at the level of interactivity. It sounds simple enough. In fact, it's so simple that I removed this concept from most of presentations because saying it in 2011 is like saying that electricity when turned on makes a room brighter. But, you know what? People need to hear this message one more time (and really push themselves to think about it). So many brands still engage in the digital channels while offering only a modicum of true interactivity.

It's sad.

We often struggle to understand why a newspaper or radio website can't turn a profit or why they struggle with building an audience that is even a fraction of the size when compared to their offline endeavors. On quick glance, the answer is so blatantly obvious: the interactivity is not there. The talent (the journalists and on-air announcers) don't get interactive with their audience and more often than not, consumers have to register or jump over hurdles to have their voices heard (they have to register and wait for an email confirmation, etc...). It's still not uncommon for many of these sites to not link out to other sources for fear that their audience will leave and never come back. Even the ones that are pushing the envelope are doing so, still have one foot firmly placed in the broadcasting side of their business.

You won't win online without interactivity.

It's not just a platitude. Not only does a brand have to ensure that their content is interactive, they also have to ensure that it's a corporate cultural imperative. It's everyone's job within the organization to know that the baseline expectations of the consumer is a world where they can really interact with their media. Pushing it further, they need the ability to share it, mash-it-up and push it to corners of the online channels that may not reside within the four walls of your strategy deck.

Why is this so hard?

When all you've ever done is broadcast a message, it's all you've ever really known. Even as brands attempt to update their online presence, step one is always to ensure that the materials that they're using to broadcast in the traditional channels have a place online. Why start there? Why not push back and ask one, simple (but hard to answer question): "if we didn't have a legacy and we know that people have an expectation of complete interactivity online, what could we do with our brand in those channels to best meet their needs?"

Avoid the copy/paste temptation.

It's too easy to take the current content you have and copy/paste it online. Brands do this (both B2C and B2B). Newspaper websites do this. Major record labels do this. Consumer packaged goods do this. Don't do this. Technology has evolved. Your brand can evolve too. Think about ways to make your brand interactive. Do the kinds of things that would put a smile on someone's face during their first brand interaction.

The consumer has an expectation for complete interactivity. A brand must be interactive online. It's not an easy mandate to fill, but what choice do we have?

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Will All Brands Be Open? Should All Brands Be Open?

Social Media did a whole lot more than just connect us all in 140 characters (or less) and through Facebook status updates.

If you're not sure what "more" means, drop everything and read the book, The Cluetrain Manifesto, by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger (hint: if you click on the Cluetrain link above, you can read the book online for free). In short, "more" means: open. The battlecry for transparency, honesty and for all sorts of industries (this includes government, businesses and more) to open up has been the central talking point around the power of Social Media.

Can brands really open up? 

Between us, I'm not so sure anymore. When it comes to customer service and listening to what people are saying about a brand (positive, negative and neutral), Social Media can have a huge impact on a brand. The public policing has done a lot to change the traditional "command and control" mentality that many organizations have for their brand. In this instance, having a brand that is open to listening and engaging with its consumers makes sense, but I'm not sure that is the same thing as an "open brand." Listening and reacting has made brands more accessible and has enabled and empowered consumers to interact and engage (as much or as little as they like) with brands.

What about true brand innovation?

When it comes to sincere innovation, I'm not so sure. Apple's Steve Jobs is often quoted as saying, "It's not the consumer's job to know what they want." It's not just a great line, because anyone who works on the inside guts of a brand - at the truly innovative level - knows that it's going to be near-impossible to pull true innovation out of the crowd just because you created a virtual suggestion box on an augmented wiki platform and have encouraged your consumers to tell you what the brand should do next.

Is innovation the tweaking of a brand or the reinvention of a brand?

If someone heads over to Starbucks' My Starbucks Idea platform and gets people to vote up the concept of a coffee stir stick that snaps into the sip hole of the drink cover so that nothing spills in transport (which is a true story), does that represent true brand innovation? Does that make Starbucks an open brand? Before you answer, consider this: does Starbucks invite (and respond) to every comment on their new new logo design direction? What about posting next quarter's advertising campaign online for all to see and vote on? Better yet, why not leave the next branding campaign to us? I mean, after all, they're now an open brand, right?

Before you go freaking out, please check this out...

Here's a Blog post titled, Looking Forward to Starbucks Next Chapter, written by Starbucks Chairman, CEO and President, Howard Schultz shortly after the company announced their new logo/positioning. Read some of the 850-plus comments that fall beneath it. Does this sound like a brand that is now in the hands of the consumer because we now live in the age of Social Media where everything must be open and the consumers now control the brand? I'm not picking on Starbucks (or Apple or any brand) at all, but let's be honest: brands are only "open" so long as it's a good Marketing, Communications and Public Relations. The net output of that may lead to some semblance of product adaptation or the introduction of a new product or service (or, like The Gap it could also lead to some back peddling), but that's hardly a truly open brand where the innovation and growth comes from the consumers and the community in tandem with the employees of the company. The reminder here is that words are powerful and you can't just be open or have a democratized brand when it comes to Marketing... it's either a part of corporate DNA or it's just another Marketing tactic.

What do you think about true innovation and the power of a brand? Can a brand's true innovation come from the consumers?

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