Monthly Archives: January 2010

Sawhorse Media

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One of the “Professional Digital Curators” pointed out by @SteveRubel. As content continues to proliferate, we are going to need people (that we trust) sorting and sifting through all of this content and bringing forward the best of the best. There are semantic engines working on this (kosmix.com), and a great topical social network (dorthy.com – disclosure: they are a client) doing this work, but there’s nothing like a human filter. I guess we call them editors, huh? And boy do we need them — now more than ever.

It’s one thing to list ranks (technorati.com) of top sites, but it’s quite another to personally aggregate a collection of resources. This is the front-end of a trend that is taking over everywhere. Magazines like Monocle and even retailers like Colette in Paris have been curating products and ideas. But we are in desperate need of solutions beyond keywords to catalog the universe online.

Posted via web from Sean Womack’s Stream

How Ideas Take Shape

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Ideas do not come into the world fully formed. They take shape. This drawing is a model for bringing ideas to life. It is based on the acronym for Shape — See, Hear, Ask, Play, Engage. I used to hate acronyms until I studied the word. It is Greek and literally means the “tip of the word.” Some of the original acronyms were Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus, RADAR and LASER. So, those are cool words.

Here’s how the model works:

1. See & Hear. Observation and listening are key elements in idea hunting. They are the primary activities — not talking. We want to ask questions and we aren’t very good at it and our questions introduce bias. So, just watch and listen. When I worked at Saatchi, we would take executives shopping for their products in stores and just watch them. Many couldn’t find their own products on the shelf.

Anthropologists have been watching people in their cultures for years. It’s a great way to learn that I discovered firsthand. Before I was married, I worked at a greeting card company in product development. I got an assignment to create baby products. You know, first year books, calendar, etc. So, I invited all the Mom’s I knew to a meeting, and asked them to bring their baby books. It was a revelation. Watching them look through the books and listening to them tell stories to the other women. I realized that these books were a measure of motherhood, and it shaped our development of a whole suite of tools for mom’s to capture those early years. But I got those insights by seeing and hearing.

2. Ask & Play. These are the first and second activities. First you have to Ask, but not with your mouth. Ask with your eyes – watch intently, observe. Ask with your ears by listening to conversations and hearing what people are really saying. Like those mom’s telling me about a baby book, but really telling me about their desire to remember and mark milestones in their child’s lives and lacking both the tools and time to do so.

After you Ask, you Play. This is the creative part of the exercise, and it should not feel like work. If it does, then you are doing it work. Work and stress are flow killers and constrict ideas. I’ve got a great tool for ideation called Deconstruction. I’ll share it in another post.

3. Engage your idea with the world. Get feedback (n:1) from lots of people. How do they like it? Watch (see) them use it. Listen (hear) them talk about it as they use it. Insight. Insight. Insight. Harvest these learnings and go back into the Ask or Play phase again. Iterate until you are ready to Engage again. Then repeat until you have a winner — and your idea has taken shape.

The diagram is a matrix with See & Hear on the Y-Axis and Ask & Play on the X-Axis. This makes 4 distinct activities: Two in the Ask mode, and two in the Play mode. Only then do you engage your audience. Repeat as needed. It’s a total of 6 steps. To recap the process:

  1. See/Ask phase. Watch and observe.
  2. Hear/Ask phase. Listen and learn.
  3. See/Play phase. Work out the pattern.
  4. Hear/Play phase. Talk out ideas.
  5. Engage phase. Get it out into the world.
  6. Repeat. As needed.

We’ll spend time on this in other posts looking at how to execute these phases — best practices, etc.

Communication Architecture

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This whole communication thing has gotten really complicated. I’m speaking now about the profession of communications, which I’ve worked in for nearly two decades now. We all know about the proliferation of media, and we know that communication shops (i.e. agencies and consultancies of all shapes and sizes) face challenges left and right. Now we have the web, mobile, and tablets (Kindle & iPad). But communication has not really changed.

I’ve been working on a simple model to help a brand, an individual or an organization think at a high level about their communication architecture (overly fancy word, I’m open to alternatives). This will be the first of several posts laying out this idea, and it’s my intention to offer up a thesis that will get some feedback – this should be a dialog not a story.

1. Communication is about talking and listening. Period. It always has been and always will be. You can have one person talking to another one in conversation, or you can have an event full of people all mingling and talking to one another. Yes, this is a bit obvious, but it’s important to realize that the many-to-many (n:n) communications that are all the rage online right now – aka. social media – are as old as the marketplace.

2. We communication to inform, to persuade or to entertain. Yes, this is from freshman communications class. But again, it’s important to remember in these days of adjective marketing: primal branding, entertainment marketing, branded information and energizing the groundswell. All of these are just basic communication objectives. What we often forget is that the people listening have an objective as well.

3. Listening Objectives are important (and they always have been). We can call it the important of context or of engagement; we can say that the brand belongs to the consumer; we can talk about review sites and bloggers; but however you are going to label it, what it gets down to are Listener Objectives. The classic “what’s in it for me” question that public speakers are always taught to ask, but brands never think to consider.

There are four quadrants for any brand to consider:

1:1 — Dialog. This is what it sounds like. Good old fashioned conversation. It can be someone wanting persuade someone to buy a product or a CEO doing and interview with a trade journal, but whether it is PR, sales or word-of-mouth marketing there are principles to good dialog. We’ll look at some of the best thinkers and ideas.

1:n — Story. I’ve gone back-and-forth on this one wanting to call it monologue or some other permutation, but I decided that it really is storytelling. There are some wonderful books and ideas about story. Unfortunately, it has become the whipping boy in the advertising community with the demise of the 30-second spot. Everyone wants to talk about social media, but story isn’t going anywhere – it just migrated to another screen.

n:1 — Feedback. Another word choice that I wrestled with, but I think it’s the right word (again, always open to better ones). People have been giving feedback since we started having leaders (and shoddy products). Today technology allows this feedback to be harvested, analyzed and reconciled in a more efficient and effective manner – not that we get any better service. We’ll see that technology is up-ending decades old practices in all four quadrants, but none more significantly than the next.

n:n — Social. Let me start by saying that this is not social media (i.e. social networking sites) as is en vogue right now. This is any collective group talking amongst themselves without the “1″ present. See people have been talking about our products and services (and us for that matter) without us present since we could talk and had Social Objects to talk about. What is new is that we now have the ability (as the “1″) to listen in on these conversations without speaking. This ability to comprehensively listen is remarkable, powerful and useful to anyone wanting to inform, persuade or entertain someone (other than themself).


Improving your Skilz

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My buddy Bryson Moore is a talented individual who runs marketing for the Soderquist Center.

He’s also got a media background and a lot of great ideas. His latest is called Leadership Skilz. It’s a video series to help you improve – ahem – as a leader. They are inspired. He also posted some of his Google Analytics tips here.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

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They’ve done it again.

You don’t have to be a prophet to know that the ideas that Dan & Chip put forth in this book are going to enter the lexicon quickly. Their ability to find disparate stories and weave them into a cohesive narrative is rivaled only by Malcolm Gladwell (IMHO). But it is the quality of their thinking, and their ability to extract real useful insights from the most mundane of sources (i.e. books on eating habits), and their ability to make scholarly research readable, practical and entertaining.

Soon we’ll all be talking about the rider, the elephant, and the path (among other Heath-isms).

Their premise is simple – change is hard, especially when you don’t have any personal or positional power. What they do they is teach you step-by-step how to leverage what you do have or what you can influence. It’s one part manual, one part motivation, and totally enjoyable.

You can pre-order a copy here. And you can read and excerpt here. And follow them here. And find cities and dates for their book tour here.

*On a personal note: I’ve had the privilege to get to know Dan and Chip just a little professionally (doing a project for them), and they are two of the most delightful people I’ve had the pleasure to know. These guys could be jerks, and people would just probably dismiss it because of their talents. But they are gracious and kind in addition to brilliant.

Office culture as social media (aka. how-to become part of a culture)

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I’m working on site for a new client this week. We are thinking about online and social media strategies (officially), but I am thinking (actually) about working in an office environment versus working in my own office. I’ve worked on-site for clients from time-to-time and it’s very disorienting initially, then it becomes very comfortable – just about the time to leave.

Interesting that this week we are working on social media strategies. Because the culture of an office is definitely a social structure – i.e. a media – and it offers some lessons about how to think about a social (or any other) media strategy. Here are 5 ways that you can become a part of a culture (online or otherwise):

1. Learn the language. Every culture has a language all its own. Duh, I know this is a bit obvious. But it’s not the English vs. Spanish kind of language that makes a difference. It’s the knowing that on a movie set a clothespin is called a C-47 kind of language that matters. This goes way beyond just knowing the text messaging shortcuts that your kids are using, and into the nomenclature of an industry and the secret handshake language of particular departments in large corporations. It’s how we spot newbies. And if you are new, you will say the wrong thing. Humility says to ask first. And humility works in almost all cultures (any culture you’d want to be a part of anyway).

2. Ask questions and really listen to the answers. Going with learning the language is asking people about themselves or about topics you know they love or are knowledgeable about. How will you know? By listening. This is the most powerful technology is the social media ecosystem – listening tools. From Google Alerts to radian6 to Motive Quest, these tools help you listen to the conversations going on. It is de facto understood online that people are listening. It’s a public space. If you are invited to the party, then you are welcome to mingle and listen in. The web gives you tools to listen to all the conversations. And you should. If you care what people are saying about you.

3. Get to know people. But just listening without engaging is a bit creepy if you do it for a long time. We call them stalkers in the real world. People who hover around just watching you, but never introducing themselves. The online space has some Orwellian possibilities to be sure, but smart companies, brands and people (was that redundant?) are now listening and finding the relevant conversations to join. Then they are coming in graciously and finding out what is going on, learning the language, and seeing who is leading the conversation (because it’s not them).

4. Learn the stories of the place. Language and literature (i.e. the stories) are the foundations of all cultures. It’s how identity, values, beliefs, etc. are passed from generation to generation. Every culture has its stories – especially the web. Urban legends are almost exclusively born on the web these days and now pass H1N1 like through social media connections. Origin stories, war stories, failures, successes – these are the classics of any office culture. Bloggers all have posts that are all time favorites of readers. Knowing what stories are being told in a culture – especially if that culture is about your brand/company – is critical.

5. Then introduce yourself (in more detail). Only after you have an understanding of the people, the language, and the stories in a culture will people want to really know who you are. People want to know you get them before they will want to hear anything you have to say. People want to be listened to, to be understood. This is universal and not unique to any medium. It’s the human medium. It’s relationship 101. And it’s important if you are introducing yourself that you are a person vs. a brand. People can like a brand, but no matter what marketing gurus tell us, they cannot have a relationship with a brand or an organization. They may relate to it, but that does not make it a relationship.

My Top 5 tools of the trade

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Without a doubt, these are the five items I would not try and run my business without:

  1. uni-ball Gel Impact (not RT) 1.0mm tip pens. I’d by refills by the case load if I could. You can get them at Office Depot, which I love except their rewards program is horrible.
  2. Moo.com cards. I got turned on to these by Seth Godin. I ordered them immediately. You can order 50 cards and have 50 different images on the back. Incredible quality and service. And they are in the US now, so shipping costs less. I took my 50 photos with my next tool:
  3. My iPhone. No, it’s not a very original answer, but I’m rocking an old school, day one iPhone that I stood in line for at my local AT&T store. I still remember the small crowds that would gather in the airport to look at it those first weeks. Favorite apps: WSJ, NYT, Kindle, Logos, TripIt, FlightTracker PRO, New LinkedIn (old was awful), Fandango, Kayak, Banking, ActionMethod, Mint.com, RedLaser (more the idea than the app, it’s not great on a Gen 1 phone), Shazam, Tweetie and WordPress (and Tumblr is a cool interface), and CameraBag (I took all my site photos with it); Some games: Bloom, SlightControl, Fieldrunners, geoDefense and Spider.
  4. My MacBook. The black 13″ one. I love their titanium products, but there’s something about this black that I like better. I live in Google via Firefox (I’ve tried Chrome, but not found enough compatibility with some sites & services yet). I also have it integrated with my next favorite…
  5. Action Method products and digital tools. My new friend Scott Belsky’s (founder of Behance) incredibly crafted products (now available at B&N) and his intuitive project-based to-do methods fits creative types better that the context-based GTD system – especially if you work and your home are the same location.
  6. Okay, so I have to list a few others: Moleskine Journals (I met the US team leader last year, I felt like I was meeting a rock star and learned that I’ve been using the journals since they were first available in the US. When I die, they will be my inheritance to my children), binder clips (near addiction), index cards (5 x 8), my LiveScribe pen (although it doesn’t get that much use), and my Label Maker (thanks David Allen).

Now that I’ve started this, I realize that there are a lot more. I’ll post others like Time Machine and iDisk for back-ups in the cloud, my AT&T U-Verse internet, Google Voice, etc.

DIY web 2.0 agency presence (without a staff or an agency)

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Yeah, I know…poor me, huh? Okay, so first things first – we have the url secured and the WordPress template (I’m using Thesis from DIY) loaded and functional. But I don’t like the design. And I’m not an official designer. I started life as a Creative Director, but I’m a writer more than an artist. Which means I have dangerous opinions about design, but I’m not officially qualified.

Here, I’ll have the design department work on it – except there is no design department. This means that for now, I’ll have these photos to the right (okay, I got those out of the way) that I don’t like and cannot do anything about. And I’m not crazy about Georgia, I’d rather have Helvetica Neue or something from HF&J foundry (see just dangerous enough), but I don’t know if they’ll run everywhere.

It’s one thing to work on the brand strategy and advertising campaigns. It’s quite another to sit down with no incredibly talented teams to fall back on and just do the work your self. I don’t know if understanding how to get Google Analytics running for my blog will help my work with clients, but it just might.

Here’s the tools I’m using (so far anyway):

  1. Setting up a WordPress site for my blog, my agency (TBD), and a writing project I’m working on — eventually, I’ll have a couple of the start-ups I’ve either founded or that are clients on there as well.
  2. I’m using the Thesis template by DIY. It’s elegant, and has nice design tools although not the WYSIWYG of a Squarespace, it also doesn’t cost. And I’m anxious to see version 2.0.
  3. I’m wiring the WordPress site into my LinkedIn and my Twitter accounts. I’m trying to migrate Facebook back to just personal stuff instead of work stuff. Perhaps that is old fashioned, but so be it.
  4. I’m considering using Posterous (and now Post.ly) to help with posting (and because I’m interested in all of these automation sites). It integrates well with WordPress – and I have a Tumblr site for the random things I see and like.
  5. Instead of building out a robust personal site, I want to use other social sites to showcase client work (on Virb, Flickr, etc.), and then share presentations (SlideShare) and whitepapers (Scribd) that I’m working on as well. More for the experiment of it than because I think it will work beautifully.
  6. I’m using Google Analytics to monitor (the currently non-existent) site traffic, and I’ll register the site with Quantcast just for kicks.
  7. What am I missing?
  8. Ah, sharing on Google Reader and probably a few other items.

At TBD, we talk to clients all the time about social media – what it is and isn’t, how to and not to use it – but I am seriously impressed with the people who just started on their own, learned as they went about it, and did not quit.

Not quitting is a big deal. More on that later.

Doing versus thinking…

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It’s really nice to just sit and think about things – to roll them around in your mind, take them apart and reconstruct them in various ways. In a way, it is very satisfying. But only in a way – and that way is fleeting. Just a moment.

Doing is very different. It is messy and difficult. Filled with fits and starts. Dead ends and frustrations. Embarrassing gaffes and elusive triumphs. But when you are done, something is there. Something new (perhaps) or at least new to you. But it is there and real.

I’ve spent much of my career thinking up stuff for my companies and clients. Most of it never came into being. That’s kind of the nature of the beast in the idea economy. Lots of ideas. Very little stuff.

Not true for my grandfather. He was a carpenter and a brick mason. He built things. If he thought about something at work, then it was how to build a wall or brick around a window. His thinking had a tangible outcome. I want more of this.

The good news in our knowledge/attention/entertainment/new media/adjective-of-the-day economy, is that the tools of production are democratized. No, not for everyone (although $100 laptop is getting us there), but for most in the US it is. That means that the distance between idea and production is smaller. And that’s a good think for the thinkers and the daydreamers of the world.

In that spirit, I’ve decided to build a structure for my thoughts. A place to capture the things that I have been thinking about over the past number of years – most of which I talk to colleagues or clients about. Some of the ideas are practical, some are half-baked (if that), some I’m just working out. So, I’m doing and thinking here – or maybe doing some thinking…in public.

I’m also in the process of starting an agency (well, it’s been three years in the making), but I plan to share the story as it unfolds. As much as clients will allow, and as much as you care to read. I hope an inside (and honest) look under the hood is helpful, and I’m hoping that anyone reading will share their wisdom along the way.