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.

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..

Vote for my panel at SXSW?

I’ve submitted a panel idea for the upcoming SXSW conference taking place in March 2008.  It’s a panel concept that ties together my work and the upcoming launch of my book, Media Rules! (Wiley & Sons, November 2007). 

My plan is to assemble a strong group of folks to discuss and debate the ways that using social media to promote serious issues differs than traditional online marketing and engagement.  I have some good folks in mind, including representatives from UNICEF and MySpace for starters.

Here is the description:

“Organizations have both a need and an opportunity to talk about serious issues — to be authentic, transparent, and sustainable in their operations and communications. This panel will discuss what drives success in the serious issues space and the lessons all organizations can take from that.”

Sound interesting?  Want to see it?  You can show your support here.  Thanks!

My Article in iMedia Connection

I had an article published in the iMedia Connection Entertainment Spot today. 

Interactive Power Plays from SXSW
By Brian Reich
iMedia Connection - Entertainment Spot
April 3, 2007
 
The three big lessons he learned from the interactive conference of this year’s South by Southwest Festival.

Each year, thousands of interactive, film and music professionals and their groupies (yes, interactive folks have groupies too) gather in Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW). The music festival hosts nearly 1500 up-and-coming bands, all looking for a label to sign them. The film festival serves as one of the major domestic launching points for new independent films. That leaves the interactive conference, now in its 14th year, which has become one of the industry’s proving grounds for new technology innovations.

Marketers come from all over the world, and particularly Silicon Valley, with hopes of learning how to make the leap from venture-funded darling to mainstream power player in their industry. The dominant theme this year was mobile, with services like Twitter and Mozes attracting attention and running up SMS charges for attendees. At the same time, there were as many Hollywood types trying to understand how the internet was changing their business model as there were programmers and designers looking for some much needed natural sunlight.

Click here to read the whole article.

My Article in Politico about SXSW

I wrote an article about my SXSW experience that appeared on www.politico.com today. 

Candidates, Choose Your Campaign Gadgets Wisely
By: Brian Reich
Politico
March 26, 2007

The recent South by Southwest Festival welcomed thousands of interactive, film and music professionals to Austin, Texas, to explore and test new innovations in marketing, technology and communications.

Much of the focus was on how to use the latest innovations for creating and distributing new albums or films. But the entertainment industry isn’t the only field that survives on buzz. At the beginning of the 2008 election cycle, the political world is also clamoring for what’s new in information gathering and dissemination. The question is whether campaigns will understand how to use these technologies to exceed their supporters’ online expectations. Here is a rundown of a few of the cutting-edge tools we can expect to see in the 2008 campaigns:

You can read the whole article here.

My SXSW Coverage in ClickZ

I wrote an article for ClickZ…

Mobile Was the Message at South-by-Southwest Fest
By Brian Reich
ClickZ
March 23, 2007

Mobile was the medium everyone was buzzing about at the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive conference in Austin, Texas last week. Panelists speculated about the changes that the mobile platform would bring to movies, television, and video games. Meanwhile, vendors promoted functionality in hopes of getting their big ideas funded.

Much of the innovation discussed at SXSW was focused on the 1,400 bands, and online services supporting them, that were descending on Austin for the SXSW Music Festival, which followed the interactive event. The highest profile of those services was Mozes, which lets users create and manage text message-based mobile campaigns so brands, bands and fans can be connected. Fans can send messages to artists through Mozes, creating an interactive mobile community for each artist.
You can read the whole thing here.

SXSW Sessions 9 & 10: Quick Notes

My SXSW experience is coming to a close.  I haven’t had a chance to post notes and thoughts from the last few panels that I attended.  So, here are two quick summaries — with more to follow: 

The Rise of Blogebrity
‘Blogging celebrities’ have emerged legitimate media personalities with daily audiences equivalent to a cable show and the ability to drive mainstream interest – or kill it – with a couple of posts.  What makes a blogebrity? The panel (moderated by Kyle Bunch of Blogebrity, with Amanda Congdon from ABC News, Henry Copeland of Blogads, Karina Longworth of Netscape, Casey McKinnon of Galacticast and Nick Douglas of Look! Shiny!), which included some real-live blogebrity’s (side note: Amanda looks very different in person than she does online) said that the key to being famous on the web was not the size of your audience but your overall media savvy.  When you see bloggers on TV, writing books, being quoted in traditional press – that is when they transcend from online to having “full coverage.”

User Generated Content and Original Editorial: Friend or Foe
In the past few years, online media has embraced user generated content.  The volume and influence of user-generated content is growing and editors are trying to figure out how to integrate it effectively with original editorial content.  How can you do that?  The panel (Moderator Mike Tatum of CNET, Dave Snider of EnemyKite, Will Smith of Maximum PC Magazine, Scott Rafer of MyBlogLog, and Evan Williams of Obvious/Twitter) explained that the overall concept media must adopt is conversation.  The benefit is that the quality of the editorial gets better when your informed user base is contributing to the content.  Whether they are right or wrong, going through their arguments, reviewing their thought process helps us to think about better ways to do our own editorial job.  User generated folks can help to set the tone for the website, set the rules, find their niche and really explore it, etc.  The secret sauce is giving the top users, the most committed and insightful special access to editors, special recognition for their contribution, or something that will keep them engaged.  Additionally, while editors may be worried about bad contributions, the community very quickly will determine if someone is credible – through comments, or ratings, or similar.  When the audience figures out what they like or don’t and if someone who puts up bad information the community usually calls them out and corrects the mistakes.

SXSW Panel 8: Building a Fan Community

By Sunday afternoon I was beginning to wonder if the different panels I was sitting through were worth it.  But my perspective changed completely (for the better) when the building an online fan base panel started.  The focuse: using the internet and related technology to reach millions of fans without spending millions of dollars.  The panel (Scott Kirsner from CinemaTech moderated, Jim Miller of Brave New Foundation, Ian Schafer of Deep Focus, David Straus of Without A Box, Joe Swanberg – a filmmaker whose most recent movie is Hannah Takes the Stairs, and Lance Weiler of the Workbook Project) talked about how movies create and use MySpace pages and blogs during production, for promotion, and the role of user generated content and other activity online.

When asked what the secret was to generating online attention for movies was, like most panels, the answer to the question was “it depends” as in “it depends on the kind of movies you want to make,” or “it depends what kind of audience you want to reach” or “It depends if you have budget or not.”  The general consensus was that filmmakers and studios alike need to create immersive experiences that leverage their own dedicated channels for the movie and tap as many distribution paths and partners as possible.  And there were some interesting examples and case studies (Head Trauma and Clerks II chief among them). 

Here is a brain dump of my notes:

• MySpace is really good for connecting with people where the films are already online.  It is much harder to get someone to read about your film and then go out to a theater to watch.  If the movie is only a click away then they will be more likely to act.  Another opportunity to use social networks is to rally an audience locally (in advance of a screening or similar) to help with things like flyering.
• A consumer’s favorite film is most likely the film they haven’t seen yet. 
• The power for self-distribution is the ultimate power.  Very important to find the hook for a film/an idea and figure out how that is going to interest a certain audience and then go out to find that audience.
• The important thing is to let the right audience know why they should be interested in the film in the first place (before it is released, in some cases before it is even completed).  One of the things that social networks have allowed us to do is tap into these audiences and create a dialogue.  Social networks make spectacular audience relationship management tools.  It is one thing to build a community, let them congregate and exist on their own.  It is another thing to actually participate in that community or conversation.
• Being able to take your fan base from one film to the next is critical.  Start courting your fan base the day you start thinking about the next film you are going to make.

Closing thought: The most important thing is to make a good movie.  There is no process, no standardized set of tools that will work to promote a bad movie.  Success in building a fan base will take money and effort, time, and a little bit of luck.