Age of Conversation - Bum Rush

Last year I had the honor and pleasure of contributing to a collaborative book effort that both highlighted, and represented, the power of social media. 103 bloggers came together for the project, entitled ‘Age of Conversation.’ We sold thousands of copies, with proceeds going to a couple of childrens charities. And, it was such a success, we are getting the band back together (plus some other contributors) to do it again this year.

Before we dive into the new project, however, we are trying an experiment. Today, the authors and community around Age of Conversation are launching a ‘bum rush’ — a one-day push to help raise the Amazon sales ranking of Age of Conversation. The more books we sell, the higher the ranking goes today and the more money goes to some very worth childrens charities.

So, please, go buy the book (use this link so we can track it):

And tell your friends to buy the book. Write about it on your blog. Make it your activity update on your Facebook profile. Hit your your Twitter account up with a post. Whatever you use to spread the word, please help us with this incredible effort.

Thank you.

Marketing vs. Politics

The Los Angeles Times posted a photo essay on its website highlighting the similarities between the movie marketing business and the business of campaign politics.  They used Barack Obama’s campaign as their case study.  They write:

Getting elected to the White House is a lot like opening a Hollywood blockbuster these days. And nowhere is that more in evidence than Barack Obama’s campaign after his speech on race in America.

With the current election cycle consuming the thoughts and dreams of a great majority of Americans, commentators have begun bemoaning the inevitable blurring of the lines between politics and entertainment. Young people get their news from “The Daily Show,” a comedy program, and politically minded voters are putting their energies into creating Internet videos that rely more on cheesecake than issues-oriented slogans.

Some pundits are calling Obama’s race relations oration the most defining speech of his campaign. However, it’s the Obama media blitz that has followed that is most reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s or Denzel Washington’s pre-movie release talk show rounds.

They go on to highlight Obama’s surprise visit to Saturday Night Live, making time for the talk shows (like the Tyra Banks Show) and his ability to “Move the Merch” (translation: sell t-shirts and stuff) and seven other overlapping strategies.

What the LA Times doesn’t note, however, is that the Obama campaign has actually been more successful than Hollywood at engaging people and mobilizing them to action.  All the candidates have been really.  A movie ticket only (only!) costs you $10 and requires a commitment of 90 minutes, but Hollywood still can’t get a major blockbuster to stay on top of the charts for more than a couple of weeks.  The Obama campaign has millions of people donating $25, $50 and $100 at a time (several times over) and spending hours making phone calls, knocking on doors, and similar.  And he is doing it in a more challenging environment — talking about serious issues like healthcare and war and race.

The reason for the success: It is not because he is a ‘rock star’ (though that doesn’t hurt) or because he goes on the Daily Show.  His success is the result of his substance — its because he’s talking about the issues that people care about, the things that impact our daily lives.  All the candidates are… maybe not enough, or in enough detail, but Senator Obama and the others are all talking about issues.  And that’s what we want, that is the key to success - understanding what the audience wants to hear about and delivering on their expectations.  It’s a tough time in America, the economy is slowing, the war is dragging on, people are concerned and looking for answers.  In hollywood terms, he has a better script, a more interesting plot.

Hollywood should pay attention to the Obama campaign, and politics in general.  If they can start to relate their work more closely to the serious issues that impact people’s lives — and if they can do it well (and seriously and authentically the way political candidates are doing it) they might just see the kind of interest that Seantor Obama and other political candidates are enjoying transferring over to blockbuster movies again as well.

The Politics/Technology Discussion Is Going In The Wrong Direction

(This is cross posted on the EchoDitto SXSW blog) 

I have been in politics all my life. For most of that time I have been very optimistic about the potential for politics to have a positive impact on the world. And that optimism increased as I saw the potential for using technology to educate, engage, and mobilize audiences increase and become more integrated. It’s a fairly simple equation in my mind. Better politics help better people get elected and better people do a better job running the country (at whatever level they were elected - local, state, federal, etc.). And technology can help facilitate that on many different levels.

Of late, however, I have been down on politics — I am frustrated that the media and various other people talk about all the innovation and evolution in our political process, but the reality is far from that. I am saddened by the fact that our government fails to serve most of our population well, and some people not at all - and that tools are available to help expand the reach of government, but those in power don’t seem interested in using them in any meaningful way. I’m cranky about the fact that so many people look at technology as the solution, when there are obviously so many more more important factors.

Politics is exciting to watch and occasionally fun to participate in, but its not fulfilling its role in our society right now. Worse than that, our democracy is broken. And the rate at which change is occurring so that technology can play a meaningful role in fixing these problems is painfully slow.

What made me so frustrated today?
I was at a panel discussion this morning with a group of very smart political operatives from the internet space (several of whom are friends of mine). They were talking all about Facebook (one of the panelists was from Facebook) and user-generated videos that appeared on YouTube, list building and GOTV. Frankly, there wasn’t any new ground broken in the discussion.

So, I stepped up and asked the panel if they felt the shifting nature of politics, which increasingly recognizes the role of the community and gives some (though still not very much) voice to the grassroots community will spill over into better functioning of government, greater access for citizens, and an increased likelihood of real solutions being found for the problems facing our society. I think it was a good question.

The responses were not very good. Panelist answer ranged from “government doesn’t understand technology and has no interest in using it that way” to “the campaigns haven’t really achieved anything of significance, so there isn’t a model to transfer over to the operation of government anyway.” (Those aren’t direct quotes, FYI…)

So, I’m frustrated on a couple levels. First, I’m frustrated that the media (and people at a panel like the one this morning) obsess over the ‘paradigm shift’ happening in politics, when really very little, if anything, has changed at all. Second, I’m frustrated that nobody in the political space seems to look past the end of the campaign cycle to the job that ultimately their candidate/party will have to do when elected. I was in the political space for a long time (and am not that far outside of it now) so I understand the mentality, but I got into politics with the goal of helping improve our society and I feel as if the industry is just navel gazing far too much about this technology stuff. And lastly, I’m frustrated that you can get so many smart people together on a panel, or at a conference like SXSW for that matter, and not even begin to scratch the surface of the serious issues that need addressing.

I’ll keep hoping to find a panel, or a group of political professionals, who want to realize the true world changing opportunities that technology offers and how to actually improve our society.

Can Science Deliver The Answer To the Measurement Challenge?

(This is cross-posted at the EchoDitto Blog and the SXSW EchoDitto Blog)
Ahhhh, science.  The prospect of finding the answers to life’s most vexing challenges always seem to come from science (or faith, which in the case of online marketing and communications is important, but certainly not for everyone).  So, this morning I sat in on a panel about the ’science of designing interactions’ in the hope of getting some additional clarity on this whole measurement debate.

The panel featured two folks, either professor types or PhDs, with thick accents — usually a good sign when you are talking about a complex subject (ok, totally unfair generalization, but tell me that you don’t agree with the statement at least in part)  And, like so many other panels, this one promised metrics for determining the success of your social media/marketing efforts.

Sadly, like so many other panels, no metrics emerged.  But, all was not lost.  The moderator presented an interesting framework for ‘designing interactions,’ — seven patterns as he put it.  Those patterns are:

1 Focus on designing interactions (the goal is to have people engage - with content, with each other, etc.)

2. Build experiment and measure (there is no single answer, no right answer, no way of knowing when you are done - so keep going)

3.  Give user metrics of his standing (if you know that you are only 75% complete with a task, you will proceed through and complete the remaining 25%.  If you don’t know, how do you know if you should go forward)?

4. Help the user decide actions (guide them, explain the meaning of what they are doing)

5. Frame interactions and costs, rewards risk (give the user an opportunity to understand the implications of his/her decisions, don’t decide for them)

6. Introduce currency for interactions (reward and incentivize people to take whatever action you want)

7. Create mechanism for discovery (collect data constantly, always be learning what your audience is doing and what it means to you)

What I learned?

Try not to tackle everything at once. Break down a big problem into many smaller problems and then look to various audiences/sources for help in solving those little problems.  (The example of Amazon Turk was used to represent this concept).  This seems to be a strategic blind spot for most people trying to communicate online — they try to create the ultimate experience, the ‘do everything’ technical solution, and inevitably they fall short somewhere.  But, if you look at the individual attributes of various platforms (Twitter, Facebook, whatever) you will see lots of little successes.

There is a spectrum of activity that any user falls on — it stretches from interacting with just content (save, annotte for self, privately star, etc) moves to “mostly content” (comment, amazon review, share to audience) “some balance of both” (twitter, forward) and on the far right you get “interact with other people (wall, fan)”

And finally, focus metrics on users - at the end of the day, it is engagement we are interested in, not just activity.  We want to know where the audience stands, how to improve, and how to contribute more.  If you keep the focus narrow and deliver on  the expectations of the user, you’ll discover your metrics in there somewhere.

Getting closer to the answer.  I think.

SXSW: The Discussion About Metrics That Never Happened

(This is cross-posted at the EchoDitto SXSW blog)

The last panel discussion of the day promised a discussion of social marketing strategy and metrics.  It featured some heavy hitters - Rohit Bhargava from Ogilvy, Brian Magierski from BSG — and others.  The moderator said the discussion would be at the ‘intermediate’ level, meaning they were going to skip past the basic stuff.  The room was packed and buzzing about the possibility of solving this vexing challenge once and for all.

Big let down.  Same old discussion.  No new ground broken.

I won’t quote from the panel, it really isn’t worth the effort.  But I will share a few quick insights that I gained while listening from the back of the room.

1) People are looking for a simple solution.  There isn’t one.  One panelist suggested the problem was that we knew there was an ROI for social media but we couldn’t demonstrate it to our boss/client.  Their solution? If someone could just create a tool, a piece of technology, that could measure all the different elements of social media conversation then we could demonstrate the value.  Um, no, that’s not the right answer.  A piece of technology will not solve this problem.  We can measure most everything that happens online.  But people haven’t spent the time to figure out what it means, how it relates to their goals and the work they are doing.

Why is that?

2) People are lazy.  The benefit of the online world is that everything (or nearly everything) is measurable.  The drawback of course, is the same thing - that everything (or nearly everything) is measurable.  And when you measure everything, reams and reams of data are produced — data about every person on the web, what they are doing, the content they are promoting, and everything else.  But nobody, it seems, reads all that data, they just look at the summaries.  Nobody it seems, is asking the tough questions about what the data says, instead of just passing along the numbers and suggesting they represent the answer.  Nobody, it seems, is wiling to take a stand on what something means, for fear that they will be wrong.

What is missing is analysis, opinion, perspective, insight.  If we are so smart about how people use technology to communicate, how people use the web, what works and what doesn’t, and we truly understand the people we are talking with online (or are even representative of those people ourselves), then we should be able to look at the numbers and understand what they mean.  We should be able to offer opinions and insights that inform real actions.

Why don’t we?

I think I do (and I demand that the people I work with do the same).  I love numbers as much as anyone.  I geek out over the crosstabs when I do polling; The summary memo isn’t nearly as interesting to me.   I wade into the comments when my client has a blog or similar and listen to what people are saying; counting how many people are commenting is not enough.

So, I challenge my fellow marketers to embrace the data and spend the time learning what it means.  I challenge my fellow marketers to provide their opinions, their informed insights drawn from years and years of experience communicating online, about what to do and how to do it.  I challenge my fellow marketers to use their brain, to trust their gut, to take a stand, and to use the process of measuring and analyzing to try something every day until we feel good about what we know.

Then we can come back and have a better discussion about this issue and what we have all learned in the process.

Substance and the 2008 Elections

Since the Presidential primary contests began almost two years ago, I have been calling for a substantive debate of the issues.  I told my friends, my family, and anyone who would listen to me that the key to victory — especially for the Democrats — was to articulate (and discuss, in detail, with the voters) real solutions to the challenges that are facing our society.

There are many issues: the war, the economy, education, the environment and climate change, various social issues, etc. that the candidates aren’t talking about in any depth.  Their websites only host a few paragraphs about any issue.  Their speeches gloss over the important points.  The press hasn’t called them on it.  Hillary Clinton (full disclosure: I am a supporter and donor to Senator Clinton’s campaign) has done better than Barack Obama, but both have fallen well short.

This week, the New York Times agreed with me.  The editorial board wrote:

… it means that there is still a chance to take this campaign and elevate it, finally, to a serious debate about major issues. That is what American voters deserve. And that is what Democrats must do if they hope to break the Republican grip on the White House.

And then this…

For Democrats, changing this dynamic is all the more urgent because Senator John McCain has now won the Republican nomination, and he visited the White House on Wednesday to collect the dubious blessing of Mr. Bush’s endorsement. Mr. McCain is now free to enjoy the food fight knowing that whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be weakened. He can now hone his attack for the fall.

And this…

The quality of this contest has not reflected that interest or the candidates’ intellect. Instead of a serious debate about trade, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton have engaged in a depressing fit of pandering to voters in economically troubled Ohio. They tripped over each other in rushing to attack the 14-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement rather than offering voters honest answers about what government can and should do to help them adapt to globalization’s challenges.

And this…

Even if their differences on Iraq are negligible, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton should still debate the issue, explaining how they plan to bring American troops home and contain the chaos…

Instead of talking seriously about reforming health care, each side has run attack ads distorting the other’s proposals. There has been some discussion about taxes, the home-mortgage crisis and the slowing economy — but mostly when the candidates are asked about these issues during debates.

And finally this…

Nearly a third of the 50 states have yet to hold a nominating contest. Before they do, we’d like to hear fewer character attacks and a lot more discussion of the nation’s many problems after nearly eight years of failed Republican rule. That is the Democrats’ comparative advantage. They should start to use it now.

Voters have an important responsibility in our country and they take their role seriously.  While some voters choose based on personality, I feel confident that most voters decide who to cast a ballot for based on the issues.  We all believe something, and have opinions about how to tackle the tough issues (even when we don’t fully understand them) and we look for the candidate that shares, or at least represents, our beliefs.

So far, the candidates haven’t given us much substance to use in making our choice.  There are many months left (it seems) in the Democratic primary contest, and more months beyond that when John McCain will debate Senator Obama or Senator Clinton further.  Let’s hope the candidates finally listen to me, and the New York Times, and start talking turkey.

SXSW: What Teens Want Online & On Their Phone

(I am at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin, TX. I will be posting updates from here over the next few days.  I will cross post to the EchoDitto SXSW Blog as well).

The first panel of the day was ‘What Teens Want Online and On Their Phones.” It was moderated/hosted by Anastasia Goodstein, editor of YPulse (a blog that tracks teen culture), and featured seven local Austin teenagers sharing their personal reflections on technology.

The discussion started with the obvious things:

- What are your favorite sites (A: MySpace, various music sites, etc.)?
- Why do you like them (A: because I can build my own lists, I can see what’s cool)?
- Do you still use email (A: “I created my email so I could get on MySpace”)?
- What kind of cell phone do you have (A: LG, Blackberry Pearl, Sony Excursion - slide phone, Verizon LG Camera Phone)?
- What do you do with your phone (A: play Tetris and PacMan or other ‘emergency games’ if I get really bored, get ‘official SAT question of the day’, ringtones, send/receive text messages, take pictures, ‘just slide my phone - when I am bored or nervous’, listen to music)?
- Do you hang out on virtual worlds (A: Zwiki, Gaia, various MMOs, but overall not too much)

Then we got into audience questions.

Here are my observations/insights.

First of all, this was a good panel By having a group of actual users talk about what they want/expect from the internet and mobile phones, we got an honest assessment of whether the web, mobile, and other related industries actually do a good job. The consensus seems to be - sort of. There is a lot more understanding the people who create technology, and content, geared towards teens could do to attract greater interest and participation.

- Money is clearly an issue. These kids did not seem to be rich or poor, so probably pretty middle of the road in terms of the money they have (or the money their families have). With limited funds, they have to make choices. They don’t want ‘pay to play’ (with games for example). Only some of the kids have phones, and those who do have limitations on their text messaging and none use the internet (”because its too expensive”)

- Content and News. There is some tracking of news (the war in Iraq, presidential elections) but its not universal. For those who are tracking news, they aren’t using mainstream sources — instead, focusing on Digg, YouTube political news, Wikipedia, the Onion (which they know is a spoof newspaper), etc. There is a desire for opinion and perspective - just reporting what is going on, not providing anything but basic facts is considered boring, even depressing.

- Causes: While involvement in causes wasn’t high, there was definitely some awareness. One of the kids is signed up for the Human Rights Campaign Fund — she said “I’m not gay, and I’m not saying its bad — just that if you can get over people being gay, people being a different color, you can get over anything” - so HRC is an important group. One participated in the Grain of Rice game (because you hid the cause in a game), another is doing a project at school that benefits Heifer. Interestingly, none wanted to take real offline action - instead, one said that she thought her friends wanted to feel like they were having an impact without having to actually do anything (”they are looking for the easy out”).

- TV and Movies: There is plenty of TV and movie watching — those who do watch regular TV use a DVR. There is also a lot of watching online, through Veoh or directly to a something like the Disney Channel online (which hosts special episodes of Hannah Montana for example). There are a few shows that they have to watch in real-time — mostly the shows that if you miss something by not watching on time, you’ll be totally out of the discussion. One added that she ‘has to watch wrestling when it is actually on.”

- Advertising: Someone asked if the kids would participate in an anti-marketing effort, to try and keep ads away from kids. Nobody seemed all that interested. They seem resigned to the fact that advertising was a part of the online experience. More importantly, they want better advertising… stuff that relates to the content on the site. And, advertising should stay on the sites where you are trying to buy things (and not be on the entertainment sites, or the social networks - when it distracts from the experience).

- Games. They like games — play on AddictiveGames.com, NewGrounds, BlackSheep, for example, but don’t really play the advertising-driven flash games. There is some mobile game playing as well (see above). Flash (or flash games) seem to be blocked at school, so they either look for the games that aren’t blocked or they figure out how to get around it (set up proxies, etc)

- Other activities: A teen stepped up and asked everyone, including the panel, if anyone goes outside — experiences real stuff, puts their laptop down. One of the kids is on a basketball team. One has a job at Sonic (”which is a carhop, so I have to go outside.’) Another was surprised that they weren’t obese (because they love to play on the computer. In terms of making plans to go out with friends, most of it is done via text message (though they meet up in real life) and they talk to each other. Nobody uses Facebook or MySpace because its not direct or personal enough.

- Marketing: What don’t marketers get about the web? And if you could have a greater say in how marketers appear on the web, what would you want? The kids don’t seem to like advertisements, mostly because they aren’t in context, aren’t directed enough. They don’t like ‘free’ offers that require you to fill out lots of forms and such.

Good discussion, very interesting..

Email and the Presidential Campaign — ClickZ Comments

I was quoted in an article for ClickZ today talking about how the Clinton and Obama campaigns are using email in their GOTV efforts in Texas.  Here is a quick excerpt:

Still, the fact is e-mail recipients haven’t all made up their minds. By neglecting to discuss issues in recent e-mails to Texas voters and distinguish one candidate from the other, both campaigns may have taken support for granted.

“It assumes that everybody who signs up for the e-mail list is a supporter…and in a closely contested race that people aren’t looking for reinforcement of why they should vote,” said Reich. “Campaigns do themselves a disservice by thinking that e-mail in particular is not going to fall into somebody’s inbox who needs more than just a reminder to find their polling place.”

You can read the whole article here.

I think the campaigns have missed a significant opportunity to use email to reach and engage prospective voters and talk about issues that are important on a local level.  The content of the emails could have been more focused, more practical, and generally more inspiring.  There are so many advancements in the use of technology to support grassroots politics this year it surprises me that email was overlooked.
There is still a lot of campaigning to do this year, so maybe the campaigns will learn their lesson.

quarterlife crisis?

“Quarterlife,” the first Web-based drama to air on network television, has been canceled by NBC after a dismally rated first episode but will move to sister cable channel Bravo, people close to the show said on Thursday.

The highly touted online series about a group of young artists bombed in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, drawing the network’s lowest ratings and smallest audience for that time slot in at least 20 years, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Ouch.
Let’s be honest - ‘quarterlife’ was doomed from the start.  It was designed for MySpace, to be distributed on the web, but it ended up on television instead.  The subject matter was specific to the web.  The production style was suited for online.  Everything that Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, the Emmy-winning producers of “thirtysomething” and “My So-Called Life” had put together was geared towards an audience of 20-somethings who get their content primarily (if not entirely) online.

So why did NBC buy the program and put it on TV?  My guess is because they thought they could make more money with advertisers, get a larger viewing audience to tune in, instead of log on.  They were wrong.
There is an audience out there that wants to see a well produced drama about 20-somethings.  Some are still watching television regularly, and maybe NBC will find success putting ‘quarterlife’ on one of its more targeted cable channels (though I would guess not in this case).  You see, the majority have found other ways to get their entertainment: through the web, on their mobile devices like cell phones and iPods, and within social networks (which, while online, have a whole different way of operating).
NBC should have known that, the evidence of this shift in how people get and share information is not hard to find.  I think they did know, and they chose to ignore it.
TV networks haven’t found a good reason to break their old habits and old models.  They still make plenty of money doing things the wrong way.  And they get pressure from advertisers, who don’t understand that times have changed either, to keep doing things the same way they always have.  Networks like NBC, and their advertisers, will probably make money this way, the wrong way, for a few more years.  But, the audience is changing and their (our) expectations have changed dramatically.  The networks, and their advertisers, must radically change their activities and recognize that a new world requires a new way of operating.  Until they do, you will see them fall flat on their faces time after time, just as they did in the case of ‘quarterlife.’
Stay tuned, I guess…