Servant of Chaos

The Evanescence of Social Media

In marketing/advertising we talk about changing behaviour. We speak of trends, present analysis and peer into the near horizon of our own timelines. We blog about the changing of consumer experience, discuss demographics, strategies and new ways of measuring reach, frequency and engagement. And in amongst all this conversation we are building our own edifice to social media -- shouting, talking and building, word by word, our own empire. But I wonder, is this all sounding so hollow?

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar
-- TS Eliot, The Hollow Men

If we take a look at the shapes of these stimulus, if we examine the state of BEING rather than the active state of PERFORMING (in our roles of employer, employee, creator, listener, receiver, etc), then we may wonder at the particular historical moment in which we have found ourselves. The popularity and rise associated with "reality TV" shows such as Big Brother and even Eurovision only hold sway momentarily, never to be repeated in the future -- for the interactivity, voting and audience involvement is as transient as the beep notification of an SMS alert.

And while our cultural artefacts are being produced at ever greater rates, the co-creation and location of their meaning appears to be increasingly bound up in the evanescent energy of this "interactivity". David Cushman, for example, cites a press release claiming that:

More video material has been uploaded to YouTube in the past six months than has ever been aired on all major networks combined, according to cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch. About 88 percent is new and original content, most of which has been created by people formerly known as “the audience".

However, as Alan Kirby points out in this article on Postmodernism (via Amanda Chappel):

A culture based on these things can have no memory – certainly not the burdensome sense of a preceding cultural inheritance which informed modernism and postmodernism. Non-reproducible and evanescent, pseudo-modernism is thus also amnesiac: these are cultural actions in the present moment with no sense of either past or future.

In the place of Postmodernism, Kirby argues for a new defining cultural moment -- pseudo modernism. Identifying 1980 as the turning point, the pseudo modernists can also be seen as those generations succeeding Generation X -- so called Generation Y or Millennials, though like anything, is more likely to relate to a mode of being than to an age/demographic group. Kirby's pseudo modernists are spookily devoid of agency, caught in the neverland between the capacity to effect change and the overwhelming minutiae digital interactions:

You click, you punch the keys, you are ‘involved’, engulfed, deciding. You are the text, there is no-one else, no ‘author’; there is nowhere else, no other time or place.

But if this is the case -- if the central seeding authority of the pseudo modernist is "cluelessness" -- a contrasting capacity to see and act on a big picture but an inability to act as an individual (or in community), then the antidote may well lie in the social media interactions that are their cause. For while "engagement" may well mean contributing to a social action in a far off country (perhaps distributing our own agency into the network of strong and weak ties), the proliferation of "real world" meetups and the intensity around them may provide some small cause for optimism in the bleak sea of pseudo modernist reality. This desire to capture and contain the fleeting ephemera of social interaction has driven the popularity of "live blogging", the collating and curation of "favourites" via del.icio.us and other bookmarking sites and the use and sharing of photographs, videos and so on. And while the production fails (and always will) in its effort to capture the live moment, we can be in danger of focusing too much on product over process -- emphasising the cultural or social aspect of end result over being in the moment.

However, I have a feeling that the artefacts of this new reality are yet to be realised for their value. For while it is easy to discount the quality, merit or even longevity of much that passes for cultural production in the current era, perhaps it is time to re-evaluate what can and should be considered important.

The disbelief in grand narratives that Lyotard identified with the postmodernists is a handy tool when it comes to thinking through our current consumer/cultural moment. And I have a feeling that Generation Y will prove to be more culturally heretical than they might at first appear. After all, the Internet with its hypertext and self-spurning evolution could well be considered the defining achievement of the postmodern generation. But the WAY in which future generations use, activate and build upon the Internet, its applications and social, technological and intellectual networks will have far reaching effects for our cultures and for us as individuals. This generation who have been "always connected" are bound to rethink society in fundamental ways.

This has certainly got ME thinking!

The Future of Your Brand Is ... Micro

This article is part of the series -- The Future of Your Brand Is ... which will be unfolding here over the coming weeks. Be sure to check out The Futue of Your Brand is Play -- Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

If you read blogs, whether they be technology, marketing, education or even business focused, you will be repeatedly hit with the message that the world is changing. Or worse ... that the world has changed, and it is we, the business folks -- the marketers, accountants, analysts, managers and teachers who are needing to catch up. For those working in agencies, the call is also shrill -- with writers variously predicting the death of agencies or demanding a refocus. And while this is one of my favourite topics, the larger picture is about the future of brands and the way that we, as category-resistant consumers are embracing, shunning and extolling them.

But while the consumer landscape has undergone a profound change, it is easy to see why business is slow to move -- for no matter how advanced we are in our "home life", evidence of a leakage from home to profession is minute. Take for example, the humble wiki. How many of you heard of a wiki? How many of you have you have used one? How many have set one up? Who has read something on Wikipedia?

Now I am guessing that many of my blog's readers would raise their hand at at least one of the previous questions. But now ask yourself, does this apply at work? Extend the same question to blogs. Does your company have a blog? Are you involved in it? If not, why not? What are the barriers preventing you?

The skunk blog

There was a time where I did not think that every company or brand needed a blog. I saw blogs as yet another communications channel to be chosen or rejected based on an understanding of your audience and your objectives. But as the pace of digital innovation accelerates, and as it is matched, step for step, by our interest in technology, the measures by which we understand "audience" are shifting. With longer working hours and a blurring of the boundaries between "work" and "life", we are always on the lookout for approaches, tools and technologies (not to mention friends, networks and colleagues) that will help us filter, assess and analyse information regardless of its source. We are in effect "Continuously Connected". This has a profound implication for brands and consumer experience ... and in many ways it is making our experience SMALLER, not larger.

If we think about (and measure) the impact and reach of a brand based on the touchpoints that we have with it, then the digital brand is going to be leaps and bounds ahead of the non-digital brand. And while this takes brand valuation down a "transactional" path, there is some benefit to this. With every click of a mouse, every read of an article or completion of a search query, the digital brand delivers on its promise (unless of course your site is down). And while the transactional value of this brand interaction is small, it creates an impression. It delivers some small piece of value directly to your consumers.

This is where the skunk blog comes in -- the blog that flies below the organisational radar.

Even if your company is slow to start with blogging. Even if there is resistance to the concept. No budget. No interest. The surest way to demonstrate the value of blogging is through blogging -- and there is a long history of skunk projects that have delivered value to companies such as IBM. Sure you will need some type of executive sponsorship to start -- but make a personal approach. Explain the opportunity. Outline the plan of approach and start slowly. Start by listening.

Setup some feed readers or Google alerts for your company name and your main product/service line. Start finding out what conversations are already circling. Find out the best and worse impressions of your brand. Identify your evangelists and anti-evangelists. Compile the data and present it to your friendly executive together with a clear action and activation plan.

Then you start small. Remember -- the future of your brand is micro. Begin to write blog posts, engage with your dissenters and supporters. Comment on their posts. Discuss topics. Dig beneath the surface of issues. Remember, with every page view and every comment, your are building value for your brand.

And while this is brand activation in a microscopic form, there is a macro view too. Google have almost single handedly brought about a revolution in economic models. When we think of digital branding and digital advertising we think Google.

The Behemoth Google Ushers in the Micro

Umair Haque's great article reminds us of the branding challenge that comes about in an economy based on micro-transactions. Based on Google's new position as the #1 global brand (as defined by Millward Brown's Brandz report), Umair describes how ubiquitous and cheap interactions are changing the nature of our relationships with brands. For with every returned search request, with the delivery of a targeted AdSense ad, the insight that comes via Google Analytics or the easy collaboration of Google Docs, Google grows and compounds its brand promise. It really is a brand built click by click.

In fact, when interaction is cheap, the very economic rationale for orthodox brands actually begins to implode: information about expected costs and benefits doesn’t have to be compressed into logos, slogans, ad-spots or column-inches – instead, consumers can debate and discuss expected costs and benefits in incredibly rich detail.

Where many brands invest 5-10% of revenues in the building and expansion of their brands, Google have climbed to the top of the brand heap with minimal brand expenditure. They have no need. Their brand promise manifests with every interaction. With every click. With every page load.

So where does this place the brand or company that has no online presence? What about those brands with outdated websites and no blogs, social network information or visible online community? What does the future hold for them? They may not disappear overnight. But their relevance to a marketplace that has already moved will amount to dollars that Google invests in its branding. Almost zero.

This is not the future you want for your brand.

Update: Seth Godin has a nice post linking this drip-feeding of your brand promise to the power to build trust over time.

The New Mobile Office

I keep thinking about the impact of Audience 2.0 on business -- on the way we work, who we are while working (ie the changes we make to our persona according to role etc) and the way that technology is transforming our lives and our workplaces. Increasingly, I am sensing that the old B2B models -- where we target our messaging and our communication efforts towards faceless, yet professional audiences -- are on the way out. And as we all begin to emerge from behind the "professional" masks that we wear, the brands that leapfrog their competitors will be those that speak to us knowing the mask but reaching for the complex person behind it.

This, piece for Fedex is a great example that showcases technology, power relationships, office politics, and the realities of business deadlines while also bringing in the personal, lifestyle and social orientation of our work/daily lives. Nice.