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SXSW Jumps the Shark (Again?), The Meerkat Craze and Twitter’s Questionable Developer Relations – ContextMatters #6

Jumping the Shark Has Jumped the Shark

SXSW is a special event. It is what you make it and what you allow it to be. And, that’s what makes it both personal and serendipitous. That doesn’t stop people from asking every year whether or not SXSW has jumped the shark. Did you know that jumping the shark was a Happy Days reference? Chris and I talk about why SXSW is important and we speak to attendees about why they travel to Austin to experience it.

Meerkat, Meerkasting Craze and Twitter’s (Lack of) Developer Relations

Meerkat mania was everywhere at SXSW and the livestreaming app is only gaining traction. At some point during its meteoric rise, Twitter opted to disable a key feature of the app which allowed it (and its users) to tap into the social graph to promote programming among Twitter followers. At the same time, Twitter announced that it acquired Periscope, which is a direct competitor to Meerkat. We explore Twitter’s response and what’s next for Twitter’s developer relations.

Mailbag: Isn’t Facebook’s Suicide Prevention Features just covering their ass because of all the bullying they facilitate?

In our first mailbag segment, we respond to questions from our listeners. First up is a response to Facebook’s suicide prevention program and whether or not the announcement was simply CYA or is it something more?

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Meerkat and the Ephemeral State of Livestreaming

By now you must have heard about Meerkat, the latest tech media darling that lets people tweet (stream) live experiences with friends and followers on Twitter. It’s basically an easy to use app that combines ephemeral livecasting/livestreaming on top of the Twitter platform but through a dedicated screen where participants can see video, who’s watching as well as the Tweets between them. I call it Meerkasting and yes, it’s already a verb. I realize that most of the words I used up until this point were either geeky or buzzwordy.

Leading up to the big SXSW Interactive event in Austin, Meerkat started to gain significant momentum. At SXSW, it was all the geeks could talk about and do (Meerkast). Brands too. This makes Meerkat one of the prestigious few apps such as Twitter and Foursquare to break out at a festival known for its many amazing experiences as well as its distractions. This attention doesn’t guarantee longer term success however. Sorry Highlight.

During the event, I spent several moments with CNN’s Sarah O’Brien who authored a series of articles on Meerkat’s rapid rise to digital relevance. Following is a summary of our conversation…



What’s the viability of Meerkat, to stay hot and keep people engaged? Is it just a tech/media thing or are others around the world just as interested?

It’s easy to ask what’s the viability of any new startup that appears out of nowhere these days. Meerkat introduces a new way to foster engagement in social communities while adding a new experience layer to Twitter. At the same time, there’s been a race for years to make livestreaming an everyday form of communication. At the moment, Meerkat is definitely something celebrated by the early social media adopters and is promising for younger users as well. It’s true test will come at and immediately after SXSW (a 30k strong tech festival in Austin). And, its performance in the near term will also be a true test for livestreaming over all.

What’s the potential for profitability?

I look at Snapchat when I think about monetization for Meerkat. The natural play is to offer a premium service for celebs and digital influencers. I don’t see that working. I believe media will pay to access elusive connected consumers much in the way media and brands are doing so with Snapchat discover today.

Why live-streaming now when others, like Qik, have tried and failed?

Technology believe it or not wasn’t there before. Additionally, social media and mobile were still becoming pervasive in everyday culture. At the same time, livestreaming and livecasting placed too great of an emphasis on the user to generate buzz and audience. Now, in an era of ephemeral engagement and message-based communication, Meerkat touches upon something we have and will do, in this case, Twitter followers and events. They come and go and therefore enhance Twitter’s experience, deliver ephemeral livestreaming aka Meerkasting (new potential buzzword), and create a tighter community bond.

Do you have any insight on the Twitter/Periscope deal? Think Twitter will eventually kick Meerkat from using it as a platform? Could Meerkat have success as a stand-alone site?

Periscope is a natural acquisition for Twitter allowing it to offer an additional value-added experience which extends Twitter as a media platform and not just a sharing platform. It’s Twitter’s Instagram vs. Snapchat if you will. I wouldn’t rule out the independent success or an acquisition of Meerkat either. It’s Instagram vs. Snapchat where one offers a lasting vs. ephemeral experience.

What will it take for Meerkat to survive?

Meerkat is going to need to look at optimizing the experience across other social platforms. Its reliance on Twitter exposes a weakness for the app to maintain long term scale. And, with Twitter limiting social graph access, Meerkat is already at risk of losing momentum and relevance. Additionally, it needs to also ensure that content producers and content consumers find one another similar to that of a TV guide or directory.

For more on Meerkat, Twitter’s developer platform and SXSW, please  listen to the latest episode of Context Matters.

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Insights: Interviews on The Future of Social Media as Curated by Anil Dash and Gina Trapani

I’ve long admired the work of Anil Dash and Gina Tripani over the years. In many ways, each has shaped my perspectives in new media and its impact on our professional and personal lives over the years. It came as no surprise that Dash and Tripani collaborated on yet another project. This time, they created ThinkUp, a social media service that offers daily insights about you and your friends on Twitter and Facebook.

To celebrate the launch of their latest venture, they assembled some of their most thoughtful colleagues to share their thoughts on the future of social media.  The result is a thought-provoking ebook featuring the likes of Fred Wilson, Steve Case, danah boyd, Joi Ito, Tim O’Reilly, Kathryn Finney, Jason Fried, John Gruber, Chelsea Peretti and a whole bunch of other people I geek out about.

I’ve provided an excerpt of my contribution below. The entire ebook follows via SlideShare.

When did you first realize that social networks were going to change how you live or work?

As a kid, I would spend time exploring bulletin boards. I thought it was cool. But as a teenager, I assumed it was something everyone did. In the mid-90’s however, and as a young man, I realized the importance of connectedness and engagement. Forums, boards, and early blogs transformed my perspective of how information travels and how people are influenced. I grew up both analog and digital and as a result, I saw the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities with both traditional and social media. Working in media and marketing at the time, I believed that understanding social media would set me on a path where I could make an impact in a new realm. In February of 1999, I started FutureWorks, a company dedicated to digital influence and new media. I ran that company until I joined Altimeter Group in March 2011.

What moment or moments stand out to you as the most meaningful ones you’ve had online?

For the first several years of venturing into social, I was a consumer and a student. I studied relentlessly to learn how to add value and build community for a variety of industries I worked in at the time. I link this to also being an introvert in real life. Somewhere in the early 2000’s, I decided to share everything I had learned and was learning. My goal was to do so using only new media. I remember feeling a sense of validation, that others also found value in my perspective, and also a sense of acceptance, that sharing with friends and strangers allowed me to connect without the anxiety of stepping out of my comfort zone. Perhaps online interaction helps someone earn confidence to become a bit more outgoing or approachable in everyday life.

Each time I publish, it’s my intention to deliver value and also invite discourse. With every interaction, I learned and grew. This drives me to this day.

If you could know one thing about the people you’re connected to online, what would it be?

This might sound strange, but I would find it incredibly useful if every network provided a personalized portion in each of your connections’ profiles that shows you how they know you or why they follow you. As networks expand and contract, it becomes almost impossible to remember the source of the link you share with someone. I’m often embarrassed and to some extent troubled when someone from my social network approaches me in the real world with a sense of expectation that I will readily remember who they are and how we know one another… “Hey, it’s me!”

What do you wish the people you follow did more or less of online?

In the barrage of updates that showcase food, activities, humble brags, famous quotes, selfies, politics, et al., I would love to know what they do and don’t get out of social media. I think the value system of it all is evolving in a direction that needs realignment. I don’t believe in information overload. Networking isn’t a reciprocal exchange. Active filtering is our responsibility to maintain value in our social streams. Additionally, it’s our responsibility to invest value in the streams of those who are connected to us.

But back to the value system for a moment. I wish people shared less of what they think is going to spark “engagement” and focused more on what will spark meaningful dialogue and interaction. There’s a difference and I think it has everything to do with why we think we need to constantly monitor our social steams and why and when we should.

What’s the big thing that’s missing from today’s social networks?

I wonder sometimes about the dimensionality of the social web. What I see online reveals one or more sides of someone but has yet to portray the true character and holistic nature of someone. I guess to expect such is unrealistic. When an online relationship is consummated in real life, there’s usually a surprising flood of personality, ethos and perspective that unfold in any given situation. However, I do think that what we share also has an impact on the dimensionality of what others see and the impressions they form as a result. I believe we should be a bit more intentional about what we share to add color, depth, and perspective to our digital persona and how it aligns with our real world identity.

After all, we’ve no choice but to live this so called digital life as best we can for ourselves and those who follow us…literally.

Insights: Interviews on the Future of Social Media – Edited by Anil Dash & Gina Trapani from Brian Solis

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Creating Truly Personal Omni-Channel Customer Experiences

When I was in London, I visited the Smart Focus HQ to shoot a series of videos, host a webinar and also sign books for local marketing professionals (videos and webinar accessible here.)  While there, something unplanned and very cool began to surface and I’m excited to share the result with you here. We assembled all of the content, organized it, and developed additional material as a dedicated ebook. I’ve embedded it below or you can read more about it at Smart Focus.

Creating Truly Personal Omni-Channel Customer Experiences

Customers are more connected and more informed than ever. Digital marketers now need an entirely fresh perspective to succeed in a world where customers and prospects experience their brand in multiple ways – online ads, websites, the mobile web and apps, blogs, email, social media, the call center, web chat, instant messaging and more. In retail, the customer journey might also include a visit to a real world store.

Too often, there is little consistency across these experiences. A lot of big brands, despite paying lip service to multi-channel marketing, still operate web, email, social and mobile channels independently. Customers might click on a link in an email and be taken to a landing page with a very different look and feel. Multi-channel marketing for many simply means promoting their eCommerce channels via email shots, social media posts or SMS messages.

Yet most brands are still on the starting blocks when it comes to true omni-channel marketing. Omni-channel is not just another way of saying multi-channel – it’s a whole new approach, encompassing technology, marketing and a sea change in company culture.

Customers and potential customers share some common desires – they want to be valued, they need engagement to be efficient and consistent, they want to be able to trust your business and to be in control.

But there is an increasing realization that people are individuals – and we all do things differently. It’s no longer possible to have one sweeping, scalable marketing strategy. Empathy and understanding the nuances of customer motivation is vital.

In this ebook, we explain how to build those journeys and develop an omni-channel marketing strategy that appeals to each and every customer and prospect in the way that works for them. The eBook includes exclusive video insights from Brian Solis, and covers subjects such as:

- What is omni-channel marketing and why is it important?

- Being human and staying tech savvy

- Social media – the moment of truth

- Why email marketing is more important than ever

- Using your customer date to create meaningful experiences that matter

- Getting started with omni-channel marketing

Creating truly personal omni-channel customer experiences by Brian Solis and Smartfocus from Brian Solis

I’m Pivoting Toward Growth

Even Pivots make pivots. Such is true for the Pivot Conference. After 5 wonderful years, Pivot is moving away from a traditional conference format toward one focused on “user generated learning experience.” I’m moving into an advisory role and Matt Godson, Mike Edelhart and the Momentum team will carry the Pivot torch proudly.

Now it’s time for me to grow. And I’m excited to announce that I’m partnering with my dear friend Debbie Landa on the 2015 GROW conference. GROW is centered on engagement and experience. It’s part conference, camp and community. And, it’s held at Whistler, a place that brings the unique spirit of GROW to life.

Whether you’re an entrepreneur, investor or corporate executive, innovation is an opportunity and a threat. GROW brings together the most experienced and renowned entrepreneurs and champions pushing for change.  They’re not just talking at you from a stage though. They’re part of the entire GROW experience giving attendees access to people who can help them grow.

This year, we’re going to explore how data, devices and things impact our business and society. We’re not just going to geek out. We’re going to get in front of innovation to push it in directions that shape a new future. From mobile payments, retail, and future of work to wearables and health/fitness, you’ll get access to the people creating disrupting and adopting this next phase of the tech evolution.

This is a new type of conference and that’s why I’m proud to be on the team.

Join me in Whistler for what can only be described as an event that is enlightening and inspiring and one that takes place both indoors and outdoors.

Beyond the ballroom style approach where amazing people will share their stories that you can only hear at GROW, we’ll also host…

Collaborative talks that overlook Whistler.

Discussions that take place on gondolas and hiking trails.

Literal fireside conversations.

Networking that takes place over Yoga, biking, walking and other activities lead by LuluLemon.

Together, we’ll reset our perspective by breathing in fresh mountain air and breathing out the BS that diluted our vision. We’ll get away from it all and leave with a new sense of purpose and attitude.

If you are interested in getting involved please reach out directly.

We’re looking for speakers, volunteers, and sponsors.

Please contact Debbie Landa (who’s also at SXSW this weekend) to start talking about opportunities!

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Customer Experience is Becoming More Important Than the Product Itself

Customer experience is the sum of all engagements and interactions a customer has with your business in every step of their journey and lifecycle. It’s what your customer feels, thinks, says (to you and others) and more so, what they do now and in the time to come that counts for everything. CX is measured not by NPS (Net Promoter Score) but instead by the sentiment and outcomes in every moment of truth throughout the relationship. That.is.the.experience. And, it’s yours to define.

We live in an era of incredible technological advancements where innovation is a constant. While tech allows for scale, we must first rethink what it is we truly want to scale. The experience we want people to have and share is the essence of CX. Technology then becomes an enabler for introducing or reinforcing desired experiences. The heart of any CX strategy should start with making business more human in a digital age. That’s why humanity is the killer app.

I spent some time recently with Paige O’Neill, CMO of SDL, a company that develops technology to facilitate global customer experiences. In our conversation, we discuss the state and future of CX and human experiences. We also span several relevant topics including:

- Customer experience is becoming more important than the product itself.

- Disruptive technologies and customer behavior are changing how we do business.

- ‘Generation C’ – looking at the customer, not by age but how they behave and become digitally connected.

- Digital experience and the journey.

- The importance of empathy combined with understanding the customer.

I hope you find our discussion helpful. I certainly enjoyed every moment of it! Enjoy!

 

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Mobile CX (Re)design: A Catalyst for Digital Transformation

Guest post by Jaimy Szymanski (@jaimy_marie), Analyst, Speaker, Advisor

In order to inspire great digital transformation within an organization, strategists must provide proof of concept on a smaller scale. Often times, change agents focus first on transforming their approach to mobile customer experience (CX) design, in order to make the case for overhauling the company’s entire approach to digital CX strategy.

Over the past two years, my colleague Brian Solis and I have researched the evolution of digital transformation through the lens of CX, and how mobile plays a key role in furthering digital transformation efforts. We found that strategists struggle with rallying stakeholder support and garnering resources for digital transformation if they have no proof of its benefits and potential ROI. Executives demand results to invest, but resources are needed to incite change. It’s a classic “chicken and egg” scenario.

The good news is, strategists find success when they position mobile as the ideal use case for proving the business benefits of focusing more deeply on digital customer needs, problems, and expectations.

For example, at Starbucks, Chief Digital Officer and EVP of Digital Ventures Adam Brotman used mobile as a catalyst for digital transformation. He previously led a cross-functional mobile team at Starbucks that brought together people from multiple departments to craft the company’s mobile vision and strategize against mutually beneficial objectives. “I started with mobile; that was the heart of it where we really acted as a team,” he said. “That worked well and catalyzed, moving into web where we were charged with figuring out what our mobile web strategy looked like and how it connected to our loyalty and payment groups. From there, it snowballed pretty quickly.”

Using mobile as an initial catalyst to spark cross-functional working groups, Brotman was able to create the momentum needed to begin refocusing the company around a unified digital approach. In 2011, Starbucks realized major strides on mobile, mobile payment, loyalty, social, and e-gifting. By 2012, Brotman’s team and other departments, like IT, were already working as one larger cross-functional team operating in unison toward common CX goals and objectives.

Although mobile lights the fire for larger digital change, it is still widely misunderstood and requires a new approach to CX architecture.

In late 2014, we expanded our research on digital transformation, looking more closely at mobile’s role in retooling how companies approach CX design. We spoke with more than 23 mobile stakeholders, from digital strategists to executives to industry thought leaders, at organizations spanning a variety of industries. I was surprised to learn that, although we knew that mobile plays a huge role in catalyzing digital transformation, it is still widely misunderstood and underfunded today.

Some companies are approaching mobile through the lens of advertising alone, without incorporating it into larger, top-level customer experience design efforts. Other companies are unwittingly forcing channel-hopping and multiscreening due to an incomplete understanding of their customers. Overall, mobile customer engagement and experience architecture is far behind what consumers desire, creating a severe chasm that’s swallowing customers as they leave brands for competitors offering more mobile-friendly (and, mobile-only) app and site experiences.

The mobile problems strategists face mirror those felt on a larger digital scale, and in many other silos that execute against digital priorities. This primes mobile to be the ideal case study for strategists looking to steer the greater digital ship—a ship that would otherwise require more time, support, and resources to change course.

In order to set the foundation for digital transformation with customer-centric mobile experience and strategy design, leading companies follow four key steps. We’ve found that adhering to these best practices better engages customers and produces greater bottom-line results:

1. Map the Mobile Customer Journey: Study the mobile customer journey as it exists today, including devices used, challenges, and opportunities within each. Delve into data specific to your mobile customers to define “day-in-the-life” mobile personas that inform customer-centric strategies.

2. Re-Imagine the Mobile Customer Journey: Design a mobile-optimized journey, by device, to win in each moment of truth. Experiment with strategies that prevent channel-hopping or multiscreening while also complementing other channels. Define a series of intended mobile experiences at each stage of the customer journey, aligning each with customer personas and related data.

3. Measure and Optimize: Define intended customer response and desired outcomes at each step in the mobile customer journey, by screen. Link back to business goals and shorter term KPIs to measure progress and optimize engagement in each moment of truth.

4. Create Alignment Through a Test-and-Learn Approach: Present customer findings, the newly minted mobile-first journey, and key business outcomes to the greater working team around mobile, digital, and CX. Run a test pilot of the roadmap to validate research and ideas and gain internal support.

Bolstering mobile strategies based on a rich understanding of customers (data!) will increase the likelihood of success for change agents who are striving to connect the CX dots on a grander digital scale. It’s a symbiotic relationship that requires digital transformation and mobile to be adequately resourced and collaboratively strategized under a common digital CX vision in order for both to thrive.

Facebook’s Suicide Prevention, Cocaine Fueled Startups and Silicon Valley as the Hub of Innovation? – ContextMatters #5

Facebook’s Suicide Prevention System

Social media bullying is an unfortunate reality. The heart-breaking cases of suicides are frequently in the news these days. At the same time, social media is serving as a new window into our ourselves, our emotions, our states of mind and being. Sometimes, expressions indicate intentions, actions are reflect signs of help. Facebook introduced a new suicide prevention feature, but is it enough? With social media comes great responsibility…and that takes technology and human engagement.

Cocaine Use and “East Coast Habits” in Silicon Valley’s Startup Community

Well-respected entrepreneur Danielle Morrill questioned why the media isn’t paying more attention to the growing drug-related issues within the tech community. Her point that it isn’t just known, cocaine use is becoming a factor among angels and VCs considering risk and ROI. Many entrepreneurs cite the increasing pressures of having to innovate and ship to justify astronomical valuations. If you look close enough, you’ll see that the issue is largely recognized but for some reason, it also seems to be among Silicon Valley’s best kept secrets or perhaps in its own strange way, a non-issue.

Does Your Startup Need to Be in Silicon Valley To Succeed?

As a proven entrepreneur who has successfully exited and also failed in founding startups along the way, Chris Saad shared 39 tips to help fledgling companies through their tumultuous journey. Friend and colleague Jeremiah Owyang questioned Saad’s assertion that a Silicon Valley presence was helpful. The answer is, no, you do not need to be in Silicon Valley to run a winning startup. But the answer isn’t as simple as “yes” or “no.”

Remember, #contextmatters

Listen to Episode #5 of ContextMatters

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Companies Need to Compete for Relevance to Survive Digital Darwinism

Digital Darwinism is claiming businesses everywhere. As technology and society evolve, leaders face the need to adapt or die. Doing so stars with rethinking what it takes to compete for market share by competing for relevance. However, executives do not know what they do not or choose not to know. In my book, you either compete or relevance or you don’t.

While I was in Paris at Le Web (see interviews with Skully’s Marcus Weller and Andela’s Jeremy Johnson), I met with the Vivendi team to discuss the state and future of digital transformation.

Everybody is talking about digital transformation these days; what exactly is digital transformation? Digital transformation, as I define it, is the evolution (or revolution) of business philosophy, processes, models and systems to compete in a digital economy. Technology is and isn’t the answer to change. Some of (many) are merely investing in all of these new technologies without understanding the culture and the nuances and the relationship that the user has within those communities or how they use those devices. These companies do not necessarily think about changing their work ecosystem to adapt to new technologies but instead try to include new technologies within the existing framework.

In this conversation, we cover a wide variety of important topics spanning everything from big data to the decline of album sales. Hope you find it helpful!

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Social Business is the Sum of Social Media Marketing, Social Customer Service, Social Selling and More

Customers and employees are still underserved and underappreciated.

Some would say, in business, social media lost its way.

Others would argue social media failed to live up to the hype.

There are unfortunately still many examples of businesses not getting it, viewing or outsourcing it as a mere “marketing” function, and operating in siloes where social becomes anti-social by design.

Without purpose and collaboration, social will always be just another thing that businesses use to defer the inevitable…change.

Even though the “cool” kids moved on, there’s a real need for businesses to become social…to become human. Our work is just beginning. Perhaps observing the gap between the expertise we have and the insight we need to make a difference is where we need to begin.

Once Upon a Time…

There was a time when social media anything represented a promise to a brighter future of customer engagement. These new human-powered networks were going to bring us closer to people. And, these platforms were also going to help businesses become more human. No more B2B or B2C, it was now about P2P networks where services were focused on true people-to-people engagement. Ultimately this would equalize leverage and bring customers and people inside businesses together. Brands would come to life! Experiences would become meaningful and shareable!

The vision was to use these new forums to share, communicate, solve problems, inspire and and build relationships that spanned digital and physical spaces and extended across the social networks of like-minded peers. Customer service, marketing, HR, sales, product development, would all become social and would in the process become human.

For over 10 years now, champions have pushed forward against rigid business models, skepticism, politics and anything that didn’t appreciate change or new perspectives that differed from traditional processes or conventions. Progress is underway albeit slow. And while change is gradual and progressive, some would argue that we could be further along. After a decade or longer, many are still having the same conversations.

People are human.

Technology can make us more human.

Engaging in relevant ways in new networks takes a personal approach.

There is indeed ROI here.

If people don’t feel or see us in these new ways then they don’t feel or see us in their life.

As a leader, it’s your responsibility to lead…not just manage. Your champions are fighting because they are they very people you’re trying to reach. They represent the future of your business. Just because you’re profitable today does not ensure your viability or relevance unless you compete for it…unless you earn it. If they don’t believe you’re listening, your champions will leave. And thus marks the beginning of the end.

Over the last year, I spent time with HootSuite discussing the real importance (note: not trendiness) of social business. Please take a moment to watch the series and hopefully they will help reignite or spark your passion to fight for change.

A New Era of Business Takes New Expertise

Social Media Intelligence

Social Customer Service

Social Selling

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