FutureVisions - Servant of Chaos

Planning for Context over Planning for Placement

Future of Your Brand, FutureVisions, Measurement, Smart Bloggers, Social Judgement, Social Media, Strategy

When we are looking to plan and execute a digital campaign, increasingly there is a need to look at not just WHERE we place our campaigns, but the context into which we place them. This is not just being driven by the rise of the “social web”, but by a transformation in the way that we view the relationships between agencies, clients and consumers.

In this interesting presentation by Don Epperson from Havas, he looks at the way in which their agency is transforming. In effect, they are following the model that has worked so well for Google.

By working from a single source of analytical data, Havas is able to aggregate a a whole lot of data based on actual behaviour. The trick is, rather than collecting data on a campaign level, the data warehouse captures information at a cookie level; meaning that the micro-transactions can be measured, tracked and aggregated. Then, by using an online advertising marketplace, the individual preferences of the people interacting with the system (banners/placements etc) can be auctioned to advertisers in a very granular way. This is what Don claims, is the agency of the future:

The agency of the future is going to act very much like the large ad networks today … we have to have scale in terms of reach, we have to be able to turn … data into knowledge …

All this, in turn (I am sure), feeds into their planning process – meaning that campaigns and activations become more targeted, more valuable to the consumer, and more meaningful to the client. It’s much like the potential on offer with Pure Profile.

As Matthew Mantey explains in this excellent post, Banners – Do They Work?, there is a mountain of data and insight to be found in even the simplest digital advertising campaign – so imagine what happens when you magnify this by a factor of 10, or 100, or 100,000:

Run one with even cursory tracking and analytics and you can find a mountain of insights. Obviously click-based conversions is the unrealistic grail you'll see, but if you set a cookie window, you'll see all of the view-based actions as well. You'll know the optimal exposure frequency level. You'll see the search patterns, branded and unbranded. You'll see format and message trends. You'll see geographic detail. And you'll probably find out that who you were targeting aren't the same demo that are interested in your stuff and coming to your site.

Is this the agency model of the future? Using technology to combine insight and targeted content within a permissible context sounds like the holy grail. The challenge would be putting the right pieces and partnerships together.

However, as I delve more into the concept of social judgement, I have a feeling that this sort of opportunity is just the tip of the iceberg. After all, taking this insight and opening it up to a social component during campaign activation could be where the REAL opportunity lies.

Happy To Be Incomplete

FutureVisions, Innovation

Years ago I had to have everything “perfect” before I would release my work for review. I would check and double check. I would have it reviewed by my team and by stakeholders. I would gather feedback, make changes and then feel ready.

In almost every instance there would be some small thing that was missed. It may have been a word, an image, an apostrophe. Of course, it would only take me a moment to see it – I would look at a page, an advertisement, a website or book and the mistake would glare at me. I was mortified. And I would wait for other to notice.

But there was nothing. Not a word. Except congratulations. I would be called over for a “chat” about my “work” … expecting to be hauled over the coals, only to get a pat on the back.

It seemed incongruous. I was receiving great feedback on work that was simply substandard. But what I learned was this – I had to learn to be happy to be incomplete.

As I was preparing this post (a week or two ago), I was chatting on Twitter with Zac Martin and Stan Johnston about my blogging process. I had also talked about it with Heather Snodgrass at our Sydney coffee morning … I basically have a series of unfinished posts sitting in my Typepad account. I also have a handful available as drafts offline – and at any one point in time, there could well be over 20 posts in various states of readiness (I even have one that’s around three years old and still not quite “done”). But it’s not like I procrastinate … or is it?

Drew McLellan asks, is this approach really necessary – or are we overthinking everything? After spending an afternoon with a 25 year old entrepreneur, Drew was invigorated by the ease with which ideas were quickly moved to actions.

On this topic, Drew suggests we read Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Change.

Interestingly, John Moore has an annual tradition of linking to Bruce’s manifesto at new year. He sees it as a reminder to himself and to his readers. I am thinking that I will be applying it myself, for the rest of the year. Here it is:

Allow events to change you.You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
Forget about good.Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
Process is more important than outcome.When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
Go deep.The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
Capture accidents.The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
Study.A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
Drift.Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
Begin anywhere.John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
Everyone is a leader.Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
Harvest ideas.Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
Keep moving.The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
Slow down.Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
Don’t be cool.Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
Ask stupid questions.Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
Collaborate.The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
____________________.Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
Stay up late.Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
Work the metaphor.Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
Be careful to take risks.Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
Repeat yourself.If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
Make your own tools.Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
Stand on someone’s shoulders.You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
Avoid software.The problem with software is that everyone has it.
Don’t clean your desk.You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
Don’t enter awards competitions.Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
Read only left-hand pages.Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
Make new words.Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
Think with your mind.Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
Organization = Liberty.Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
Don’t borrow money.Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
Listen carefully.Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
Take field trips.The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
Make mistakes faster.This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
Imitate.Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
Scat.When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.
Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
Explore the other edge.Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces — what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference — the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
Avoid fields.Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
Laugh.People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
Remember.Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
Power to the people.Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.

How to Thrive in a Slow Down

Branding, FutureVisions, Measurement, Social Media, Strategy

I can remember watching the Twitterstream a couple of weeks ago as the global financial crisis deepened. Here in Australia, we sit on a strange timezone precipice, where as our Monday ends, it is just beginning in the US … and a small band of locals would stay up late just to watch the first few minutes of trade in New York. There is an odd sense that we are, in some small way, witnessing history in the making.

But while the macro story is being played out thousands of kilometres from my computer screen, the impact has yet to really hit. However, there are some things that businesses can do to begin focusing their marketing efforts right now, before the shockwaves seep into our businesses. John Rosen has an excellent and detailed post that advises an initial three steps:

1. Be clear about your strategic objectives. Understand the financial measures that you are focusing on, determine the most important long term relationships, maintain your product/experience viability and figure out which competitors you should attack directly.

2. Understand your brand from a competitive point of view. Look at where the value rests in both the competitive and non-competitive environments; and do the same from a premium brand offering perspective.

3. Re-evaluate and adjust your marketing. While this sounds obvious, check out John’s list of “Do’s and Don’ts”

Craig Wilson, however, suggests that we may well be at a turning point for both the types of marketing that we do and the agencies that we use to plan, create and execute. In this great, and far reaching post, Craig outlines the state of affairs, the issues at play and makes some suggestions for where we might be heading.

Social media may well be rising at the perfect time. As consumers grow increasingly weary of broadcast advertising, and have more control than ever over the media and content they wish to consume, social media offers a subtle new direction for marketers to build relationships and brand.

The social media revolution that we have been asking for, may well materialise more quickly than even Julian Cole would have anticipated. Not only do a variety of indicators suggest that digital and social media related marketing will increase (taken in large part from the traditional marketing budget), the economic circumstances will sharpen the focus of all marketers – ensuring that campaigns and promotions receive ever greater scrutiny. And with a bevy of measurement tools at hand, digital analytics are likely to become very popular on both client and agency sides.

So, how do we thrive in this slow down? Adapting to change … evolution … new thinking and innovation, of course. Think change management and business consulting mixed in with marketing. Think the end of your agency as you know it.

But don’t rush … take it in, for as Craig says:

We may really be at one of those unique times in history, a turning point that forces change and massive innovation. New economic realities will necessitate reinvention for old media and marketing businesses to stay relevant, and will result in the rise of new media options and new marketing thinkers.

Look around you, at the media landscape today, the agencies that feed them and the marketers whoa re their clients. Take it all in. Make a mental snapshot. It may be the last time it ever looks like this.

Enterprise 2.0: It’s Not Your Dad’s Company

Enterprise Social, FutureVisions, Innovation, Web 2.0

Take a look around. Look at the people in your office, at the desk next to you. Look into the faces of the people who you pass in the corridor. They look the same, right? The same faces have greeted you year in, year out.

Well, get ready, because the workplace is transforming, and it is happening right under your nose.

Those peppy Gen Y kids who were brought into the business to inject some life and energy are moving up. That’s right, they have been steadily building their experience, lobbying the line management and pushing through the KPIs in the yearly 360 degree reviews … and guess what? They are now making business decisions. Yes, indeed, Gen Y are reaching the management level, and working the matrix — and they will bring a new style and a new approach to your business. This will transform the way that we all work. Indeed, it has to.

And one of the biggest transformations will be right there on the desk in front of you. That locked down desktop that has served you well for the last couple of years will soon be replaced. Gradually that sparse Desktop will be replaced by a series of icons and widgets … and horror of all horrors, you will find the work computer looks increasingly like your kids PC (or dare I say it, a Mac!). The new management will be prising the dead-hand of the IT group off the controls and installing new applications and adding new links. There will be Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and Friendfeed. There will be various shades of SaaS (software as a service) delivering on-demand enterprise scale business processes and systems that you can reach no matter where you are, all courtesy of “the cloud”. Sure there will be the in-house enterprise systems … but they too will play nicely with whatever you need them to. After all, it’s not your Dad’s company anymore.

But while this sounds like a madhouse of change for the sake of change, stop again, for a moment. Get up and walk down the corridor. Your workplace is about to undergo a large-scale transformation … millions of baby boomer workers are set to reach retirement age in the next few years, and the next wave of Gen Y knowledge workers are stepping in to replace them. It’s not that the systems, processes and business models are being changed on a whim – they are being changed because the people who DO the work are changing. Like any living organism, the organisation is also transforming … shedding its skin in a kafka-esque tribute to the new age.

And while these new systems and processes may raise your eyebrows and your blood pressure, there is actually some as-yet unrealised business value in platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Aaron Strout and Joe Cascio clearly explain where micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter can deliver business value:

Emergency broadcast system
Knowledge management
Training
Expert identification
Seeing the connectors
Inclusion of external stakeholders

All of these elements will be of increasing strategic importance as the composition of the global workforce turns over on itself. And while there will be issues and questions around security, scalability and so on, they pale into insignificance against the larger challenges of global competition, attracting talent and delivering value to customers. And who knows, the widespread adoption of these tools may well inadvertently fullfil the promise of the Cluetrain Manifesto — "humanising" the brands and businesses that we come in contact with every day.

It really is not my Dad’s company.

Update: Marigo Raftopoulos has a great post encouraging us to understand this business transformation as a change from economies of scale to economies of (I presume personal/professional and social) networks.

Social Media Saturation Sees the Rise of the Business Designer

Community, Enterprise Social, FutureVisions, Innovation, Social Media, Web 2.0

While we continue to see cycle after cycle of new applications and services arrive in the Web 2.0 space, it seems for the most part that we are seeing incremental innovation. This type of innovation builds a new step on top of an existing innovation.

We are also reaching a certain maturity in the way that marketers work with social media. There are now case studies on the effectiveness of social media, there are tools that help us measure and react to conversations and there are an increasing number of corporate roles for "community managers" or even "directors of social media".

So where does innovation go?

In this environment, the focus is no longer on learning the tools, but on refining the way that we interact with them. It is about bringing social media into our businesses, integrating it with our other marketing efforts and focusing efforts in a way that deliver business results. This will see ongoing debates about "where" social media belongs — PR, corporate communications, marketing, customer support, innovation etc — as well as a scramble amongst agencies to deliver "social media services" to clients.

It will also see a rise in the importance of the "Business Designer".

The Business Designer does not sit in a creative studio. Rather, she operates across business units — touching marketing, customer service and new product design. The BD has a finger on the pulse of finance and lives cheek-by-jowl with the legal team. There is the touch of the management consultant in the way that the BD navigates the org chart — but also the fervour of the evangelist. She may be T-shaped. She may be a green egg. But above all, she is an experienced business professional. That’s right — she knows how to get things done.

Social media saturation is not going to kill innovation in the Web 2.0 world. It is simply going to commence the heavy lifting required to move social media with all its benefits, some of its quirks and much of its energy into the "enterprise space". The BD will perform the important role of "change manager" or perhaps "transformation manager" — for the domino-like changes that will occur in every facet of a business will change the nature of the enterprise. What has been rough and ready in the consumer space will become refined and repeatable in the business world for the BD will select and orchestrate the practices, tools and approaches that correspond with a company’s business strategy. Of course, this will breed a whole new round of innovation in the technology space — we have already begun to see this with Yammer, the business version of Twitter.

And there will be a corresponding transformation in the process of business, and the goals and approaches of groups charged with managing brand touch points. This goes without saying.

But by far, the most radical transformation will be the one thrust upon us by the generational change that is now under way. With 60 million baby boomers about to be replaced by 60 million Millennials, the workplace will never be the same again. Managing the "knowledge transfer" that needs to take place over the next 5-10 years will be a fundamental responsibility of the Business Designer.

David Ogilvy’s Case for a New Advertising

Digital Strategy, FutureVisions, Smart Bloggers

In this seven minute video of advertising guru, David Ogilvy, a case is made for a new form of advertising. It is a clear call for a fundamental change in the way that advertising functions. He talks about new, direct response advertising and the way in which it out performs, out sells and out functions "general" advertising. Efrain Mendicuti suggests, that with a few chosen word substitutions, that Ogilvy could in fact, become Marketing 2.0’s leading evangelist:

… substitute the words Direct Marketing for On-line Marketing and Direct
Response for Interactive Marketing, and tell me if you wouldn’t want to
have him as THE ambassador for Digital / on-line Marketing today.

Is another new advertising revolution already underway? Do Ogilvy’s words sound eerily presentient?

Would You Help a Reporter?

Conferences, FutureVisions, Smart Bloggers

Ross Dawson’s Future of Media Summit generated quite a lot of debate on both sides of the Pacific. There was some excellent coverage of the summit from a variety of angles, with Stephen Collins asking What will the future of media look like?, Chris Bishops pondering the business models around monetising future content and Craig Wilson viewing the summit with one eye focused on the Twitter backchannel.

Seth Yates has provided an excellent summary including notes on all the panels which is a great reference point for those who attended, and those who could not. Reading back through these posts it is clear that the debate shifted to a discussion about future roles, not necessarily future industries. Indeed, much of the discussion falling out of the conference has been around citizen journalists vs professional journalists.

Stilgherrian’s summit coverage, (and the same post at Crikey with a different commentary/discussion), plus Jonathan Este’s response, (which was originally posted on Crikey and reposted on Stilgherrian’s blog with comments) turned the heat up on this debate.

Clearly this is an emotion-charged discussion. And while it is a discussion that needs to take place, it strikes me that we are being bogged down in a debate that may be solved by refocusing our cognitive surplus in another direction — finding an innovative way of delivering value across the chasm between the "traditional" and "social" media groups. In fact, finding a way of bringing journalists and new media practitioners together may be the best way forward.

Last week I saw a link to Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter site. It is a site designed to connect reporters with credible and expert news sources (and yes, that includes bloggers). It is opt-in. It’s a site that uses technology to provide value to a community that, in many ways, does not yet exist. It is well facilitated. But I wonder, is this something that would work here in Australia? It certainly could, and should.

But participation costs. It means leaving your shoes at the door. It means rolling up our sleeves and reshaping the media industry from the ground up. It is not the total solution, but it is a first step. What do you think? Would you help a reporter?

A Glimpse of the Future

Entrepreneurs, FutureVisions, Web 2.0

Tea Sans Gravity
Originally uploaded by Treekins

A comment on my post about Twitter, Plurk and teens the other day really got me thinking. In the comment, Arthus Erea suggested that one of the driving factors for teens in their uptake of new technology is critical mass. Now, this is not surprising, but it is refreshing to hear it directly.

As Arthus says, community is king:

Community is the driving factor for my generation: we want to be where our friends are. That’s why *everyone* switches from MySpace to Facebook at roughly the same time (around 9th grade now). Sure, we knew Facebook was out there and was better than MySpace. But we don’t switch till there’s a critical mass (read: high school students) worthy of our attention.

So how does this play out? What is it that is going on in the lives of teens? What is this vision of community? What are they thinking and what does this hold for the futures of us all?

One of Arthus’ side projects (apart from school, blogging, photography, business and a plethora of other things) is Students 2.0. It is an inspiring insight into the thinking and passions of tomorrow’s business leaders:

For decades, students have been stuck in classrooms, behind desks, being told how and what to learn. For a time, when students were expected to become widgets for the vast machine of industry, this model of education was highly effective. However, we have now entered a new age: an age where thinking is more important than knowing, where thoughts out-do the facts. Borders are melting away; project teams collaborate across the globe and intelligence is being continually redefined. The world’s information is at our fingertips and anybody can publish their thoughts for virtually no cost.

Everywhere, we see changes: with how business operates, how people interact and how success is accomplished. There is unfortunately one place that remains unchanged, the place that could benefit most from the changes we see today… the classroom. The education system continues to “stay the course” upon a falling ship. Yet, the widgets within the machine are no longer content to grind away. Ideas are popping up everywhere, across the globe. Students are continually redefining their own lives and how they want to learn and interact

I will certainly be adding Students 2.0 to my reading list. Check it out, I am sure you will too.