Great series of posts on Choice Architecture in the Wild…

May 26, 2011 By 2 Comments

I’ve been a bit slack in recommending some of the great articles and posts appearing on other blogs around the internet, which is particularly highlighted by Jonathan MacDonald’s great series on ‘Choice Architecture in the Wild‘, as it’s now up to a 12th installment!

All of them are well worth reading, and the latest post provides some great examples about the way simple decisions in marketing and advertising are sometimes misguided in terms of what people actually believe and do as a result.

Obviously I need to disclose that I’ve happily known Jonathan a while and he may or may not have once bought me a sandwich (Or I might have bought one for him, in which case, he can disclose it, and also buy me lunch sometime!)

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The meme-ing of Christmas

December 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I’d been meaning to write about how social networks really do seem to have killed something with regards to blogging – the blog meme. Rather than posting and tagging people to get their opinions, which used to happen a lot a couple of years ago, people are just asking the same questions on Twitter and Facebook. Bit of a shame for longer answers (And the chance to get some backlinks!).

And then Eaon tagged me in a blog meme.Originally started by Rob Campbell.

Bugger.

So, in response:

1/ Best single thing [personal &/or professional] you did/achieved in 2010.

Professionally, the best thing by far has been the fact that rather than sign-on for unemployment benefit whilst applying for every job available, I took the opportunity to try to start my own business. Thanks to a great number of wonderful people I’ve managed to secure some great clients, avoid bankruptcy, and although I’m still speaking to people about potential permanent roles in the future, I can limit it to those opportunities which are truly amazing, and that can stack up against building up my own empire.

Personally, I also have to say I’m immensely proud of finally turning some talk into action, and starting up Digital People in Peterborough. So far there have been two pub meets, with about 15 people coming along to each, plus around 40 people signed up for the old site. So with a new site and a new year, it should be even better in 2011.

2/ Most shameful thing [personal &/or professional] you did/achieved in 2010.

Probably the biggest source of shame has been launching a new business and a couple of personal sites when I have a young family to support and spend time with. The balance between work, my own sites (ORD and FPSPrestige), and my family is getting better with time, but it can definitely be a struggle at times. And as a result, this blog has suffered quite a bit in terms of regular updates providing value to everyone as well as hopefully attracting a little bit of new business. Plus 140Char has been effectively shuttered since October.

3/ Ad industry scandal or scoundrel of the year.

I’m not strictly an ad man, and don’t fancy picking out something from one of the bad advertising lists elsewhere, so I’ll generically call out all of the businesses who typically spend lots of time and money on shiny adverts which promise lots and don’t deliver.

That includes companies who are now claiming to be social or engaged as bandwagon jumping, but haven’t invested the time and effort behind the scenes to make it part of their actual business process. At it’s core social media and engagement is about customer service and conversation, and not pitching someone one week and then sending him a generic PR link-building request the next (It’s happened to me several times as people failed to click on the About page on this site, for example).

4/ Your overall rating for 2010 out of 10. [1 = shit / 10 = showoff]

7.

It’s been a challenging year, and the current economic and political environments aren’t making life easier. But I’ve managed to conquer several obstacles, and I’m pretty proud of both my business, and some of the resulting efforts of my clients. I don’t think 2011 will be easier or any less hectic, but I’ve got a far clearer picture of what I need to be doing, and it seems like the last month in particular has built a lot of momentum for 2011.

5/ What do you think will be the most overhyped advertising related subject of 2011?

Augmented Reality (AR) is a good example of fantastic technology which really isn’t being used very well by a lot of people. (Looks like Forrester agree with me on that one). But I can’t see that stopping more companies jumping on mobile, tablets and technology like AR without stopping to sort out their underlying business strategy and approach first. I’m confident that most magical solutions generally fall back to a base level fairly quickly, and that includes Apple platforms like the iPad and the iAd ad network.

Technology is awesome and something that I truly love, and there are great opportunities in utilising new technology as soon as possible. But if your basic plans don’t work with the most basic of tools, then any new technology solution is just going to mask it in the short term.

Who am I tagging:

Apparently I need to pick on five people and distract them from their Christmas relaxation, so I’ll go for:

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Every Single One of Us should look at Every Single One of Us

December 12, 2008 By 2 Comments

I’m learning that you can always rely on someone like Jonathan MacDonald going that bit further! And he’s certainly doing that by driving a new movement with a simple aim ‘making communication better‘. It’s well worth taking a look at Every Single One of Us for the whole story, and then making sure you subscribe to hear about any updates.

From Every Single One of Us:

The world we are now in, will show an astronomical shift in commercial budget toward this area – but currently, few people know for sure how this can come about.

There are a number of reasons why that is and this movement proposes the following 4:

  • A lack of pertinent information
  • A lack of understanding how to interpret information
  • A lack of will to action on information
  • A lack of skill to action on information

Taking these 4 points and applying them to any other nascent situation, we see they are common.

In our ‘No Way Back From Here’ volume, we will apply these 4 points )although some may already have one or more covered).

For example, you may have the will to action on information and a great deal of skill, however there may be gaps in the understanding or access levels. The gun is loaded, you know how to fire it, but why, at whom and when?

Alternatively, you may have the world’s leading information from research and popular opinion, but lack the will or skill to action anything.

Its all OK. We are all ‘right’.

It doesn’t matter which part you are involved with or which part you are ‘covered’ on. We can move things forward together – but this movement proposes we first need a way to ensure we all have access to the information required for us to collectively interpret it (or at least, those that wish to).

Once we have this, we can help others gain the will to action and the skills to do so (if they desire).

He’s also laid out a 7 step plan to achieve this, as well as initial activities within step 1 – covering the lay of the land. It includes a major research project, a series of TV interviews, an ongoing series of conferences, seminars, workshops and master-classes, information gathering and looking at VRM.

I think this is probably one of the movements with the clearest idea of purpose and direction, and possibly most likely to succeed in achieving some sizeable goals, judging by the starting point. The biggest risk might be Jonathan exhausting the rest of us….

Seriously, go to http://www.everysingleoneofus.com right now, if you haven’t already. And take some time to look at what’s being established…

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Two good excuses to invest in printed materials…

November 13, 2008 By 4 Comments

It’s very rare I purchase a book. The last two were Tribes by Seth Godin, and Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur by Richard Branson, both of which have a lot to teach anyone in business and in social media marketing.

(Incidentally, after writing about Business Stripped Bare, here, a nice young lady named Natalie emailed me to say that there’s a widget to display the first 43 pages of the book, which you can see here. Meanwhile, my thoughts on Tribes and how to get it for free, or just 95p on iTunes are here.)

Anyhow, if you prefer to read from a printed page than a computer screen, then there are two more additions that I can recommend investing in.

The first is Dave Cushman’s The Power of the Network, which collects his white papers and more into a single download for 49p, or in printed form for £4.98 via print-on-demand site Lulu. (Disclosure – Dave is a former colleague and friend of mine – enough that I’m credited in the book!). Well worth reading – or buying for someone who is interested in how social media is changing. It’s particularly interesting due to Dave’s lengthy experience as a print journalist and sub-editor before his ever increasing adoption and insight into the changes multimedia is having on everything around us. He’s running a blogger review programme – and also giving any profits to Kiva, which allows you to fund people to change their lives and make their own way out of poverty.

The second is Jonathan MacDonald’s Every Single One of Us: Vol 1 The Communication Ideal, which looks at the underlying principles and makes bold predictions for the future advertising, marketing and personal brands – and is relevant for anyone in the media, internet and mobile industries. (Disclosure: I’m a very small part of a distinguished list who were involved in supporting and helping it’s creation). Jonathan’s CV speaks for itself! Plus he’s probably the closest thing to a legitimate social media rock star, thanks to his musical talents. It’s a £2.99 download or £14.95 for the print edition, and all the money is going into a collective pot to continue the concepts he’s building as part of a group. You can see it explained in a far better way, here.

Actually, cobblers to it and I’ll add a couple more – Joseph Jaffe is offering a very special deal for people buying certain amounts of his books Life After the 30 Second Spot and Join The Conversation  (I’m a big fan of Join the Conversation), ranging from signed copies to a day’s consulting. Take a look at the offer on his blog, Jaffe Juice.

Now I know a lot of people reading this will probably have heard of these people, read their blogs and be familiar with their work (or at least you should!), but the print editions are perfect educational materials for anyone who still associates a ‘blog’ as being something where a geek talks about how he sits at home on his Xbox, talking to his virtual friends. This might help them realise that in the modern world, everyone is doing it via mobile, internet, their console – and that to really be a geek you’d have to go much further. That’s why I love the fact that Seth Godin references the term Otaku, which I’m familiar with due to my love of video games and Japanese culture. It’s for anyone with an almost obsessive interest in something, whether that’s social media, videogames, motorcycling, football or anything else.

There’s a great William Gibson quote from the Observer used at the end of the Wikipedia article:

‘The otaku, the passionate obsessive, the information age’s embodiment of the connoisseur, more concerned with the accumulation of data than of objects, seems a natural crossover figure in today’s interface of British and Japanese cultures. I see it in the eyes of the Portobello dealers, and in the eyes of the Japanese collectors: a perfectly calm train-spotter frenzy, murderous and sublime. Understanding otaku -hood, I think, is one of the keys to understanding the culture of the web. There is something profoundly post-national about it, extra-geographic. We are all curators, in the post-modern world, whether we want to be or not.’

So go and buy some presents for the Otaku who don’t realise that’s what they are, and how the web can empower their interests, specialities, and dreams.

(And seeing as I’ve got the books, I’ll have a smart phone, a net book, an MP3 player and a new car stereo please!)

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