I wanted show what an evolutionary step between today and that imminent future.
I decided to show this in what might a business card look like. So here is my business card, in a evolutionary stutter between now and ubiquitous technology.
HTML Code that is simple enough to work as advertisement, but still readable by a computer and not only readable but semantically tagged in such a way that would come up faster on a search than most sites we cruise daily, complete with a QR Code to bridge the physical to the virtual, and above all to bookmark it.
(screen print on Canvas tote, graffiti on non-permenant surface, sticker)
It took me a a bit of effort to make this example and quite a bit of analog tech like stencils, and silk screen, and is a bit crude but you get the point. And possibly the first of it's kind. Topics: Internet, leadership, strategy, web_design0 CommentsRead Full Post
Posted by Jesse Poe on July 23 at 10:10 AM
Clients often ask me, what, in my opinion, is the future of technology. They want to know what the next internet will be, or the next iPhone, or app store, and my answer is resoundingly the same.
The future of technology is not another device or service, although we will see many of those before the future arrives.
Instead, the future of technology is ubiquity.
You will no longer reach for you iPhone to make a call, it will simply be, need to send an email, just scratch it on to a piece of paper and write send. These sort of things.
Seem like science fiction? Remember where we were 30 years ago, remember where we were 10 years ago? Now we can have face-to-face chatting through our iPhone. Imagine that 4 years ago, and this Sci-fi idea seems all the more tangible.
We are at a bulging point with technology, and it's future is ubiquitous as opposed to device driven, and therefor the sort of thinking that was once at the forefront before technology became such a focus will be important again, but only with a full understanding of how technology can serve that insight, as opposed to lead that insight. Topics: leadership, strategy0 CommentsRead Full Post
Posted by Jesse Poe on May 25 at 10:10 AM
This post discusses:
Experience Design & User Experience
The Golden Circle
Inspiring people to use
Today I took the F train to work instead of my typical route and got off at the first stop in Manhattan, East Broadway. As I wandered my way to work through Chinatown I was reminded of how quickly you can find yourself in unfamiliar territory. I had to keep checking the horizon to orient myself through what was once the famed Five Points.
There was information everywhere, but none of it was information I could understand. I was looking for points of reference among this cloud of info and I was thinking about how much it was like the types of systems I help clients through and how quickly they can lose themselves in a maze of backend, CMS, servers and Ftps, and formats, all to achieve the same goal: to get their work done.
This maze of tech can be confusing and no matter how well crafted a system or even your guidance through it, if the User is not the focus of the design, it is bound to end in frustration for all, and that User should be the people who will be using it it not the people building and critiquing it.
Is your user experience meant for only a select few or for a greater audience? In world wide web, it should be the greatest audience as that anyone could find their way to your site, company, program.
Take this ad for tea, I know it's for tea without even understanding the print, I understand most of the add and the call to action without even reading a word, and the scan leads you to purchase. Very effective and simple, yet the technology doesn't get in the way of the ad nor destroy the image and emotional feeling of the ad. And the end result is that this company went from a print add to actually connecting with me via my iPhone and one step away from the point of purchase. The contrast of the two above images says a lot about what we call experience design. Why is that some companies are able to communicate their product or idea so much better than others who are "selling" the same thing? It is the property of the Golden Circle, the positioning of what you believe first inspiring others to believe in you, as described in Simon Sinek's TED talk: How Great leaders Inspire Action.
Posted by Jesse Poe on May 24 at 10:10 AM
This post discusses:
• the hospitality, music, and internet industry
• a start-up to be aware of
• a cool iPhone app
• two ways to direct your strategy
• the key to successful poetry
Last night, I went to the ACE Hotel in midtown to meet up with Edward Aten founder of Swift.fm in ACE's very popular bar. Swift.fm is an amazing start-up that allows users to add audio information to tweets creating a radio-station style playlist of music (check out my office ambiance channel here) which is viral-enabled to allow users to engage content in various formats and contexts by highlighting their musical perspective. They are also a breath away from being the #1 Music-specific twitter client by traffic, and with their new platform of locked down branded-wrapped embeddable channels they are soon to be a swift force in creating brand identity, engagement and social conversation on the web (well even more than they already are). We talked about the future of Swift.fm and the future of the web and which direction we see it going: a direction that other like minds across town are quickly developing at diaspora* I had two eyes open all night as that not only am I interested in the internet (as it is my field) and especially as it relates to social networking and music (as that is my love), but also because I build social media plans for hip hotels and program their facebook pages in FBML. We toured the hotel and it’s famed analog sound system, met with the event planners and tried a variety of their special brews. Independently, Ed and I both took pictures of the Hotel/bar and showed them to each other, both photos were snapped with our iPhones, yet with surprisingly different results. My photo on the left, doesn’t look cool, but points out one of the cool features of ACE and it’s brilliant design; the curation of space through text and messaging throughout the space Such as this great use of the exit sign:
Ed’s photo on the right is much more cool looking and stylized in presentation as that he took it with the new app Hipstamatic which creates some really incredible shots (I have been using it exclusively ever since for all my photos), however his photo doesn’t show how cool ACE is, instead it shows how ACE is just like any other bar, hip or not, across the world, and in essence the backbone to the bar, that it is in the end a “bar”. There is what you present and there is how you present it. Success is a synergy between the two. The great poet Terry Hummer once told me the secret to poetry was to take a flower and expand it’s beauty and properties to become as vast as the cosmos, or to take the cosmos out of the sky and wrap into a language and understanding so tight that you can hand to someone like a flower.
Topics: Internet, media, social_networking, strategy, tools0 CommentsRead Full Post
Posted by Jesse Poe on April 29 at 10:13 AM
Written by Ayesha Mathews-Wadhwa
At AdTech San Francisco last week, I caught up on current trends and insights involving the digital marketing world. Lot of great insights from speakers such as Jamie Cohen Szulc - CMO of Levi Strauss, Chis Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine, and some cool tools from Chicago based Networked Insights. Here are some highlights.
"It's not about selling, it's about being coveted... and creating a consumer experience." Jamie Cohen Szulc of Levi Strauss captured the core of marketing circa 2010 with that one statement. Citing that the general public has uploaded more content to YouTube in the last few months than TV networks have in years. It's this kind of data that backs up Levi's daring plan to let customers generate content for the brand. One of many examples was their "Go Forth" campaign. Users are encouraged to re-write a constitution and critically think about what America and an American brand (Levi's) means to them. This is the kind of branding I love! It's the perfect example of having a conversation with consumers, rather than shouting about how great a brand is.
"Do things for the consumer and they will carry forth your brand." Jamie Cohen Szulc was so jam-packed with great case studies it's hard to pick just one. You have to check out Compare the Meerkat. Apparently, "Compare the Market" is an over-used search term for insurance aggregators. This brand seized the opportunity to create a whole new category with a Russian accented meerkat! Their results were through the roof.
The "swipe" will replace the "click." As Chris Anderson explains, the iPad is saving the day for the 21st Century magazine business. Wired magazine is taking the canape version of print magazines onto the iPad along with a level of interaction and experience that the web doesn't quite deliver yet. Consumers will "swipe" the screen simulating a page turn from a magazine. As digital marketers, our job will be to stop the finger. Some ideas? 360 product view, interactive games, and playing with engaging characters.
A tool to effectively harness the spectrum of online consumer conversations? Networked Insights has an exciting new tool to capture the conversation and buzz around your brand called Social Sense™ . It translates all interactions into insights that can drive marketing and brand communication. Finally! There's a way to filter and make sense out of all the noise generated by social media, chat rooms, online cafes and anywhere else your customer is 'talking' online. Topics: media, strategy0 CommentsRead Full Post
Posted by Jesse Poe on March 19 at 10:38 AMToday we are very excited to have Gitamba Saila-Ngita a freelance strategist from San Francisco and founder of the outstanding site: The Retrospective as a guest Blogger for DMDxd.
Gitamba was a part of the Unconference we hosted last month in partnership with Wenovski and Parsons, and will be joining us again next week for our 2nd unconference March 23rd at Parsons.
Last month, while floating amongst the flashing cameras, models, and elite fashion parties that make up New York City during fashion week, I was invited by Jesse Poe, Associate Producer for DMDxd, to participate in a design-centered thought strategy unConference, hosted by Wenovski. I must admit, though, that I rarely enjoy going to conferences because either a) I'm reluctantly there for work or b) the conferences are nothing more than a podium for people to wax poetic on their own importance.
Thankfully, the Wenovski unConference (billed as such due to its largely participant-driven nature that shunned typical conference requirements such as fees and sponsored presentations) fit into neither category. Populated by some of New York's sharpest minds in anthropology, urban planning, architecture and technology, our group discussed how design-centric ways of thinking can solve every-day problems, and maybe even change the world.
In my view, good design permeates almost everything around us. Designers, regardless of their discipline, strive to solve problems of all shapes and sizes; maybe they're re-evaulating the placement of a door handle, or envisioning what colors will best echo a brand's core values. What started out as a loose conversation among 20 guests holed up in a Parsons' New School classroom turned more serious when we were given the task of brainstorming how we might solve societal and environmental issues affecting New York. Some of the topics we discussed revolved around the utilization of free and unused space, how to galvanize community identity through group initiatives and (my personal favorite) how to to dispel the fear of interaction in gritty New York City.
As a group, we voted on initiatives to battle the ironic resistance to human interaction in a city as populated as New York. Would it be shirts color-coded to specific moods? Or digital umbrellas that would display your interests, giving your fellow man an opportunity to relate? If you've ever been lucky enough to brainstorm with design or advertising creatives, you know the pitfalls (and promise) of having so many people simultaneously generating ideas. Luckily, Humantific's Garry VanPatter set clear parameters that let us tap into our knowledge, stories and experiences in ways that informed our ideas. And even more luckily, Petri Tanninen was kind enough to jot down all the thoughts and ideas of that brainstorm session at the Wenovski Design Thinking Ning page.
For me, the greatest take away from the unConference was the utter ease in which such various disciplines came together, and how new and innovative ideas followed. One amazing perk of the unConference was being able to ideate solutions with other people free of the bottle neck of client approval. What if a meeting to create a new building, park or playground was organized using this interdisciplinary approach? What if rigid governmental bureaucracy was replaced with groups working in balance, rhythm and harmony, all design school staples of thought? I love being challenged and engaged by thinking from outside my realm of experience because it allows me to start seeing a bigger, more holistic picture. Being in a room with someone like Jeremy Barbour of Tacklebox, who works as an architect when not indulging his many other talents, allowed me to tap into his experiences with design and architecture in China. His knowledge was influential in thinking of the ways in which a city like New York could make its populous not just friendlier to each other, but also to isolated tourists and travelers.
There are several more unConferences in the works so take a look and participate if there's one coming your way. And special thanks to Jesse Poe and Rowland Hobbs of DMDxd for the invitation, and to Arne van Oosterom of Design Thinkers for coordiating the event. When design is truly great we don't think of it as design, but as the ways we interact with the world around us. Imagine if we got that feeling from every aspect of our day-to-day lives, and how powerful and liberating that would be.
More coming on the next unConference!
----- As a strategist, Gitamba Saila-Ngita has helped brands develop strategy and content for the ever changing landscape of digital media. Clients have included Odopod & Evolution Bureau (EVB) on such brands as Pepsi, PayPal, and Gatorade. He cut his teeth in the marketing and branding world at Stage Two Consulting (S2C), a firm that specializes in branding, social media, and product marketing. There he worked on accounts including Boxee, Netgear, and Sonos. In his spare time Gitamba founded The Retrospective, an online publication focused on uncovering trends and giving insight into global consumer culture.
Posted by Jesse Poe on February 12 at 7:02 AM
Today’s UnConference was a smash hit. Hosted by DMD and Arne van Oosterom (Owner and Strategic Design Director at DesignThinkers, a strategic design agency based in Amsterdam, founder of WENOVSKI design thinkers network) at Parsons The New School for Design.
A collection of 20 great cross-disciplinary thinkers from San Francisco to Finland and in between, met for 4 hours to discus solutions for urban design.
The unconference started as a mummer, quickly raised to a rumble of fantastic ideas and thousands of possible directions for making world of design better.
After an hour of this exciting fray of thinking, GK VanPatter (Co-Founder, HUMANTIFIC, CoFounder, at NextDesign Leadership Institute Founding Editor at NextD Journal), stepped in with his own brand of design, making sense of cross-disciplinary innovation.
And make sense of it we did!
Broken into 3 timed sessions we:
discovered the issues we all had burning within us and were addressing in our own ways
distilled them all down to the most potent and effectual problem to solve, the problem which when solved would begin to unravel the tensions around other problems and open them up for solving
finally coming up with 50 possible solutions to that one issue
Amazing day. Amazing minds. Amazing results that got at the heart of not just possible directions for making world of design better, but possibly making the design of our world better through better interactions.
Posted by Jesse Poe on January 28 at 10:38 AM (Part 2 of Tomorrow Will Change the World)
Well it’s the morning after the day the world would change and well, has anything changed?
Jobs wrangled his illusive tablet unicorn out of Apple’s enchanted woods and it’s called the iPad. The internet exploded not with acclaim, but with jokes. One thing I learned as a musician was never name your band something that can easily be punned upon. Why? because for lack insight or time to investigate, it’s easier for writers to bash something than to support it. If there’s a joke to made then it’s the first step on that slippery path, and the iPad slid right down it.
Was it a game changer? Not really, but we can’t say until it is implemented. My greatest hope was to see 3G packages for existing iPhone users who purchased the Pad, and bundled subscriptions to newspapers and magazines. But there is still hope, even in it’s highly sterilized control freak OS.
It’s also the morning after one of the best speeches since Roosevelt, and if you watched the ignoble arm folding of the right during or Fox news afterward (just for torture), it wasn’t a game changer either, according to them.
However, this morning I was encouraged as I stopped at my local newsstand, and saw the positive headlines topping almost every paper, and it made me think. It’s not so much the product, but the way we react to it. It is not so much what is given to us, but what we choose to do with it.
So my challenge is this, even though Terry McGraw probably woke up with a horse head in his bed, we can still have bundled content, we can have cool innovation. Who will join us?
I’d like to see my favorite print in full glorious color, hyperlinked, and with video all in one spot. We don’t have to wait for Time or SI to lead the way, what about the The Baffler, or Yeti? And new hardware to interface. Adobe, Wacom? How about a slip case that holds the iPad on one side and on the other side a pen tablet to write/draw on, bundled with subscription services for university text books?
Posted by Jesse Poe on January 26 at 11:48 AM
So tomorrow at 10 a.m. PT the world will be a different place.
Apple will drag the elusive unicorn out of the woods and unveil their Tablet (whatever it will be called), and the world will be a different place just like it was after the iPod.
Maybe?
I doubt it, but it will be a wonderful new way to create, engage and connect. A new tool to build around to work with, to enrich our lives. Should be a step up or two from it's former Newton. So game changer or not, it will be exciting.
You can read proposed specs and uses on every site & blog on the web, however the most important thing to think about for this 'game-changing' moment is if this does change the world, are you ready for it?
The iPod smashed the music industry and then rebuilt it. It also turned music back into a staple of culture.
Technology, as it advances, changes business and the way we work, how will this new Apple device change your business? And if it is not a game changer, will you be able to use it regardless in an effective way for your business.
Here is a chart showing what others have allegedly filed apps for according to Flurry:
The print industry is rubbing it's hands in expectation of this glorious day. How are you going to use it?
Posted by Jesse Poe on January 20 at 12:30 PM
So the New York Times is going to start charging for their on-line content.
Makes sense, people have always paid for the New York Times at the newstand or to open their door in the morning and find it waiting there, so why not on-line.
I clicked a survey yesterday on this very topic and the results showed that some 70% thought it should be free. Because journalist should work for free? Absolutely not, but because we have come to believe that everything on the internet should be free. How we got to that idea collectively is the subject of other posts, but it is true, free is the current currency of on-line life.
So is the Times doing something smart?
Well smarter than the Wall Street Journal, in that incidental visitors, arriving no more than once in a while through searches and links, would be unaffected by the new system. This is good as that Wired.com has proven it is the long-tail that is of greatest importance of all. Over 70% of the searches performed leading to their site are for articles more than 2 years old.
Blocking information is like cutting off people’s water, it just seems wrong, but if we can’t afford to pay for serious journalism, we would suffer much greater problems in the future. As an example look at the age of miss-information that Fox “News” has created.
What is very smart in all of this is that the New York Times is thinking ahead. The deluge of e-Readers that are about swamp the market will most likely funnel down into a paid prescription sort of package, as that internet providers will not be able to squeeze a third monthly charge for access. Your home connection, your phone and your tablet. It just won’t fly. But wrap that up together in a package with different content packages and I’ll buy it.
The most important thing is that as technology steps into this new decade you will see an advance in e-readers that will make the hype for the Apple tablet seem without basis. Flexible screens, that you can fold and shove into your bag will be the tipping point for a complete exodus to digital news, as it will no longer make sense, neither environmentally nor economically, to produce a majority of printed news. Having begun to step into the waters of paid subscription again, the New York Times will, even if running a skeleton crew, still be alive for this new time of jubilee that will once again reposit newspapers as pillars of wealth as well as culture.
Whatever the Apple Tablet may turn out to be, based on the speculation of what it is purported to be, they are missing the boat. I don’t need an expensive one-sided laptop. But an affordable flexible reader that has my choice of content, that I can follow hyperlinks for further exploration or word/fact look ups, email articles to my friends, see videos attached to the news, fold up and shove in my bag; that will be a game changer, and worthy of subscription fees. I’m glad to see NY Times getting ready for that kind of game.
I’m also glad that subscribers to the physical paper will get free access to the site, that is fair and makes sense, I love reading the Times in my hands, but for passing articles and information on to friends and clients, the on-line site is essential. And will hold me over till the future arrives. Topics: Internet, Mobile_Marketing, social_networking, strategy, tools0 CommentsRead Full Post
Posted by Jesse Poe on January 19 at 9:30 AM
This morning I was very pleased to see the success of the Mobile Campaign of the American Redcross. It's simple, texting "HAITI" to 90999 makes a $10 donation. $22 million according the to New York Times.
The gravity of the need, the compassion of people, and the simplicity of HOW you can help, made one of their most successful campaigns of all time.
Do mobile campaigns work? Yes. Compliments to the American Redcross for not only helping people, but for making it so easy for others to help them help people.
Here at DMDxd we try to lead by example. We see things that are about to go wrong and promote the good before it goes bad. But sometimes it just goes bad. What can you do?
Not only has social media, or perhaps better said dynamic media (as all media should be soical), become a force to be reckoned with it has also become a issue of corporate stance. If you now say to a mega-national, I am going to post how much you suck on my Facebook, they have corporate speak to combate and control that, which in essence makes people feel like once again they have no power.
The lesson to be put in our pipes and smoked is not the, hey if they make the effort and waste their time we might have to due some damage control (see United Breaks Guitars and it's more than 7 million views, first showed to me after a Thanksgiving dinner with my whole family watching, if only your company had that kind of viewer attention), but hey in the end we really don't know who our clients are.
That's a problem, not knowing who your clients are.
Enter M.I.A. who's 2007 underground-cum-mainstream hit "Pull Up the People", still to this day one of the best party songs of all time, became overwhelmingly famous with the success of Slum Dog Millionaire and their use of her undeniable sound in "Paper Planes".
So her new record, the first since all this amazing world wide success: Myspace views 29, 190, 328 and 133,398 Facebook fans, is to feature a hit about how she spent 3 hours on the phone with Verizon and still didn't get her problem resolved.
This song features actual Verizon workers singing with her about how the service, how shall I say, sucks!
Listen to Pull up the People, or Paper Planes from Slum Dog Millionaire and tell me if she has a voice that millions will hear or not?
I hate to point out the negative, but sometimes you have to, so that others don't do the same. This record has already gone to press, there is NO damage control. It has gone beyound social media, kids will be dancing to how bad Verizon treated her. Must I repeat, you have kids dancing to your poor serivce, there is no damage control. It would have just been better to have had more phone staff available to fix problems for a company who serivces so many people, of all levels.
Now if she'd only write a song about all my dropped calls on AT&T, I might get my service improved before I break contract.
Geekdom has been drooling over the coming of the Apple Tablet. Why?
The simple hope that it will be a game changer, like the iPod was a decade ago, or the iPhone was just a few years ago.
The important question is what will your website, blog, magazine look like on a tablet and more importantly are you ready for it?
With the late adoption of the iPhone/mobile platform and still complete failure of major magazines such Playboy to respond in a current and creative manner, you can be sure this might be your chance to get a leg up.
Many have already cued up, have you?
Here is an example of what Sports Illustrated is planning:
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 14 at 12:01 PM
My 7th grade World History teacher used to give us tests every Friday. As he passed out the test, he would boom out the same mantra every week. No talking, no notes, no going to the bathroom, no looking at your neighbors test, read the whole test before you begin and then begin.
I never read the whole test first, I am sure 90% of our class didn't either, because on the year end final there was only two people who didn't have to take the final. The year end final was passed out with the same mantra as always but this time the last question on the test said, "if you have followed the directions and read the whole test before beginning, then do not answer any of these questions. Simply sit there until 10 mins before the class is finished. Bring your clean untouched test to my desk for a 100%.
Of course 40 mins into the test you started to hear groans as kids read the last question, and we all learned our lessons, or did we?
Friday, I posted about my unfortunate experience with GOOD.is, who until recently has been one of my favorite websites.
I was very unhappy with them, but now I am pleased to announce that GOOD is no longer Bad in my book but back to good.
In the process there is something to be learned about users experience on websites, something I should have learned in the 7th grade, but didn't.
What do your users actually read?
I think that we'd all like to think that every blog post, every tweet, every profile update is read, that links are clicked and that jokes are laughed at. However, people come to your site for a specific reason typically, that reason is different form site to site. If you run a tech site like Engadget your visitors are coming there for a different reason than if you run a site for esoteric science-fiction, fantasy, horror, fringe culture, and hobby gaming like Atomic Overmind Press. Even if there might be a tremendous amount of overlap in who is coming to these two sites, they are still coming for different reasons with different expectations.
One of those expectations, you can be sure, is not to read about the things going on on your site, a refresh, a problem, etc. It might be important to you, but not to your public, you can imagine that IF they read it, they are going to read it with their Micromachine's voice.
Other than my bank, my 401k, my email, and maybe my Facebook/twitter, I am not going to read about what you might be doing on your site, and you can imagine this to be true across the board. Unfortunately this was the case with GOOD.is.
In a Herculean effort of outreach, Andrew Price, Senior Web Editor of GOOD.is contacted me through Twitter and then personally by email after my post on Friday, explaining the situation at GOOD.is. Aparently, there isn't a word limit, but for a while characters like dashes and ampersands would just cut off everything that followed them. They are trying to fix it and he directed me to the post:
As much as I am a fan, I didn't read this post. Why? Because we go to sites to get what we want, not to find out something on a site that may not effect us (even though it did in this case) and that might very well be addressed by the time I finish reading it.
So how can we get this info to our audience in a way that is effective, how can we communicate with them?
Go to them, tell them the information that they need where it will be effectual.
Had that info been placed above the comment box: Hey we are having issues with our comment box, it's eating ampersands! I would have not only understood, but probably like them even more for the humanity of it.
GOOD.is did nothing wrong in posting a page explaining this, but it is a chance for us all to understand better the way that we move on the internet and how we interact. They did the right thing in addressing the issue and they went above and beyond reaching out to me and Andrew Price was extremely genteel and kind, but it is an excellent example of how we are still always striving to find a better more effective way to keep this every growing machine (the internet) well oiled.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 11 at 12:37 PM
So you have built a site, written a blog and even got people to read it. Now what about the comments?
People use the comment sections to dialogue with other commenters and of course you the writter/brand. If you are lucky enough to get some one to engage with you why would you cut them short?
Imagine you finally get a business call and you limit it to 99 words. Come on.
Here is a lesson from GOOD.is who I usually adore, on how not to run your site.
They had a great post, I chimed in with a researched response adding to the post and encouraging conversation. My comment was 535 words of support and added value. GOOD truncates at 99 words, my other 436 words lost.
So I wrote a letter to them explaining how truncated comments don't exactly encourage conversation.
A week later still no response. Strike 2.
Here are the two take aways:
1. GOOD.is lost a passionate follower and turned a Zealot to a detractor over an HTLM code that could say 10,000 instead of 99, and by not caring enough to respond to their email. Why even have a "contact us" if you don't respond? Not a good situation.
2. Cut me off in the comments and I will just post a sidewiki which will immediately get picked up by Google. Lucky for good, the passion behind my 535 words, including the 436 they cut off was positive. Imagine had I been upset about what they wrote..... their word count limit would have made me even angrier.
What would be the draw back, well, that you might get a spambot that hacks in and leaves 30000 links on a comment, who cares, take it out, much better to be troubled once in a while by something everyone must face, than to limit interaction when interaction is what you are after and turn a brand zealot to a detractor.
GOOD work guys you lost a fan.
picture of the sidewiki:
Letter to GOOD.is which they never responded to:
Dear GOOD-
I preach your gospel, book mark you and always link to you in my own blogs, I think your doing a great job & have turned on many friends to your site.
Today I have to say that I am more than displeased with your site.
You posted a great article and I wrote a passionate response of 535 words.
You cut me off at 50 or so.... not a "good" practice, be glad that you have people who follow your site who care enough to write that much.
Adjust your word count to allow for as long as people want, that would be not only good but right.
It's hard to find people who are passionate to help and support, it's easy to loose people over stupid things like this, I just spent an hour of my time helping your site and now what?
Bad practice, GOOD.
I hope you fix this, before people just take the conversation elsewhere.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 10 at 10:46 AM
So you have heard the buzz about Google now including real time search results.
Some are probably asking:
What does that mean?
And then others are asking:
What does real time search results mean to my small business?
Well quickly real time search results means that key words such as "name of your Biz" are going to be showing up on the front page of Google in a real time search window. These will be brought in from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca for now, who knows what will be invented tomorrow.
So what does that mean for your business? That the time you are spending engaging with your clients/public is now going to be in the spot light. You have been saying good, encouraging, helpful, informative things on your twitter, right? Of course you have! So now when someone types in a keyword such as "bike repair", Mike's Bikerepair twitter account will be streaming in to the front page of Google. I will see all the helpful and courteous dialogue going on at Mike's and want to take my bike to Mike.
John's Bikerepair uses his 2.0 life to discuss how good his cereal is, so we'll know to call him for advice about cereal and Mike to fix our bike.
Remember three things about real time search results:
1. You will be seen, if you are participating in the 2.0 world.
2. Your competitors will be as well.
3. Your happy or unhappy public will also be seen there.
If you do not have a strategy in place to benefit from this, and also to damage control (when that time comes) then I suggest you get cracking! Or hire someone to do it for you.
Google has changed the rules of the game again and you can use them to your favor.
Posted by Rowland Hobbs on December 8 at 1:13 PM
All my life, I have never struggled for perfection. For one, I believe it's unattainable. For two, I believe it's a moving target. Nothing is ever perfect. If you ever think something is perfect, you're either lazy or misinformed.
On the web this is even moreso the case. The glory of the web is that we can change things on the fly. Files can be put up, and taken down. Images can be uploaded, downloaded, and deleted. We can create multiple versions of the same page just to test which setup works the best.
Today, WebMonkey (which sounds a lot less serious than it actually is) posted a blog much to this point, except regarding applications.
And it's true! We need to break free of the unending and deadly cycle of reviews and approvals. It is better to get something up and then work on it continually. Once it's in the real world, you can quickly see what works, and what fails.
If all we do is stare at PDF files of designs that have not been put to the real test of hard code programming, we set ourselves up for disaster when the browsers and connection speeds of the world show us what our actual project will look like.
Of course, this is a bitter pill to swallow. How do you tell a client "let's get it out there, and then fix it?" What's funny is you really can't, it's the worst cacophony to their ears. However, also funny, is that this is how it always is. You launch a site and then begin to notice things.
On the web we so strive for organization. For an easy template to pop our projects into. We want things quick, easy, and clean of the blood of the innocent. This doesn't produce good websites, but it does create award winning ulcers and nights of restless slumber.
So we all need to take a deep breath. Grab our clients by the hand, and tell them it's all right. It's okay. We can fix that. It'll take just a few hours.
Why will this work? Because a website is never done any way. Even books print numerous editions. We can do the same on the web, in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 8 at 12:01 PM
Google blew the doors off yesterday with a bevy of new services. From analytics to the more commercial centered Google Goggles, they came out swinging. The funny thing is that there wasn’t really anyone in the ring to go down.
In Sunday’s New York Times article about the App store, Katy Huberty, a Morgan Stanley analyst said, “Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend — one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years.”
Ms. Huberty then likens the advent of the App Store and the iPhone to AOL’s pioneering role in driving broad-based consumer adoption of the Internet in the 1990s.
In no way am I being cynical, but I am curious what Apple has planned to keep it from going the way of AOL.
AOL claimed a demographic that it will maintain, until their grandchildren or younger friends, convince them that AOL is not the internet, but a website. So they can hang in there for awhile, Apple has massed enough cash they should be fine as well, but their demographic are tech loving youngins, artists, designers, etc. Nothing is there to keep that demographic if it's better, cheaper, easier and more open armed elsewhere.
While Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan were snuggling up over their Joe and AOL mail. AOL was conquered on the very groundwork they laid.
Reminds me of the age-old situational joke, where I struggle to open the bottle that’s honeyed shut, I do all the work, and then my kid brother picks it up and takes the lid off to much applause.
I just hope while Apple is standing around and “clapping-in” new kitchy apps everyday, somebody is in the back hard at work on something as good as all Google has to offer the world of late.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 4 at 11:41 AM
People have been using Google as a dictionary for years. Simply typing the word or an approximation of the word, letting google correct it, copying it, pasting it and then moving on.
The fact that they added definition to their site is even more convenient.
Is it the best? Who cares?
Basic definitions are typically the most useful. Why? because when writing/speaking even though you might like to use the perfect word, the perfect word is always the word that is going to communicate the best and that is usually the most common definition of the word.
Communication is all about communicating.
With the exception of poetry and other such writing, people typically want to quickly clarify the definition and spelling, not do a word study.
For word studies I wouldn't go to dictionary.com (etc.) anyway, but a number of sources, in which case the spotlight on my Mac is the perfect solution. Dictionary, thesaurus, wikipedia all side by side.
Good work on Google's part, they understand what people want: ease.
Posted by Jesse Poe on December 3 at 11:24 AM
Ok, so to be honest my google reader is not full of just PR, tech and media feeds, it is a bit of everything, and one of my favorites is GOOD.is.
I had to weigh in about the importance of residual waste as well and to make my point I turned to my job and how here we use all parts of the chicken at DMDxd.
When you are planning an event, what is your residual waste, and how can you then turn that into stock for a great soup?
Here’s a check list:
1. Audio
2. Video
3. Social Media
4. Photos
5. Copy
Audio, interview people there, the speakers, the crowd, little meetings, whatever. Turn it into a Podcast.
Video, sure your filming the talk or the ribbon cutting or ball dropping etc., but what about in the dressing room, in the cab, behind the scenes. Run it through iMovie and put it on Youtube (no more than 2 mins please).
Social Media, do you have an established #ashtag set up for people to follow, or even a twitter account specific to the event? Can people Facebook connect when they arrive, how are you looping these things around your event and back into your business. A guest book can be so many things these days, if it’s fun, easy and there, people will do it.
Photos, yep those are still important, even if you on the same page and have already hired a photographer or two, what about on the fly? Your cell phone? I played a festival where once you got off stage each performer was given a video camera they could keep with them for the next couple hours, now that was cool, and footage everyone wanted to see, places most people couldn’t get and priceless candidacy. What about just leaving disposable cameras at tables, and sticking a Flickr URL on the camera letting people know, the photos they snap will be uploaded. And you can get the ball rolling behind the scenes with a live feed to flickr from your cell or whatever, while the event is going on.
Copy, microblogging the event, compiling that afterwards into a more blown out blog post, straightened up and polished into a whitepaper or article that you purpose to a magazine, or someone else’s blog.
The idea is that if you have an event, use the whole chicken. And remember, that event can be something as simple as a tweet-up or you name it, brangelina doesn’t have to attend to make it an event, just you and your great ideas.
(an example of DMD doing this can be found here, and more if you like, drop us a line.)
Posted by Jesse Poe on November 25 at 12:46 PM
I am 34 (stated for demographic purposes).
I just read my first book on my iPhone, it was free, I enjoyed it, and now I have purchased my first eBook as a result, your talking about a man who treasures even the smell of a hardback. Why did I buy it, because I got one for free the content was good and I wanted more.
I got the NY Times app for free and now I have a weekend subscription. Why the content was good and I wanted more of it and in the way I wanted it. During the week I want it on the screen, on the weekends in bed with coffee.
I got the WSJ app, loved it, more than the NY Times. Murdoch canned the free app, I erased it. I got a deal in the mail for daily subscription to the WSJ less than my weekend subscription to the Times.... went right in the trash. No way would I want to give my money to someone who keeps information from people.
There are lots of people like me, and more each day, everyone younger than I for sure.
People think the music industry has tanked, and it has, but did you know that the wages of musicians have gone up?
There have been even more recent posts on the same idea that I have seen. If you check my google reader, you'll find them marked there.
The problem is not making money, the problem is out of date business models. There is plenty of money to be made everyday, however how to make it is changing and so should we.
Here is a very quick story:
1. worked for a very important literary journal (left unnamed out of respect)
2. reader/contributor base was monitored by the obituary section, so as to not waste money sending things to dead people.
3. young talented writers were turned away, why? because the reader base wouldn't like new fresh writing.
4. young talented writers posted their work on line
5. the review is now out of business
6. I have stayed in touch with a couple of the young writers who submitted, and they are now onto their 3 and 4 book deals. I think Clay has jus done his 5th!
So would you rather be well known for great thinking and insight, a voice of authority and point of reference, or would you rather have a small email list and follow the Unnamed Dead Journal above? Topics: Google, Internet, social_networking, strategy0 CommentsRead Full Post
Posted by Rowland Hobbs on November 17 at 4:32 PM
Last time I gave some advice, it was to Gamestop for their flawed mobile marketing campaign that sent me to a closed store in pursuit of a game. I haven't received another mobile alert from them, despite my pre-ordering Assassin's Creed II last night for PS3. So clearly my advice is being considered valuable.
Today's down-and-dirty trick is something everyone can use. And it's simple, too. As I said in the headline, and will explain here, you should put no roadblocks between your audience and your content.
None.
I don't care if you depend on advertising. I don't care how important your site metrics are. If you read any sort of strategic texts these days, there is a prevailing call to arms for all of us web folk. That is: bring the content to your audience, don't drag them kicking and screaming to you.
I am bringing this up now because I am angry at one of the RSS feeds in my Google Reader. They think they're cute. They send out a headline, and then a tiny bit of lead-in text, and then try to drive me to their site to get the pay-off.
Maybe for other users this works. It doesn't for me. Any sneaky feed that tries to stick-and-carrot me away from my precious Google Reader home base faces the wrath of my "Mark All As Read" button. I will not be lured. I am a busy business man with busy business things to do. Like write blog posts mocking you.
So here's a tip. If you're going to RSS your blog or site (which, God almighty, you had better) do not give a summary. Do not give a link. Give the post. You will earn the hearts and minds of Google Reader junkies like me everywhere. For example, if we really like one of your posts, we'll click to it so we can link to it in our Twitters or blogs.
The blogs that play games with my heart do not earn this privilege, only my seething rage and hardcore profanity.
This works everywhere else, too.
1. Allow your YouTube videos to be embedded, like this brave Universal artist Chamillionaire who may be in trouble with his bosses, but just earned himself a space in social media's fleeting spotlight. (PS: see how I linked to Mashable there? That is because they give me full posts in my RSS reader. If this post was not in my reader, I would not have linked it).
2. Do not ask users forty questions to download a "white paper" that is basically a long and flowing advertisement for your services. (Here at the DMD Network, we give those away for a click of a link.)
3. And, for God sakes, please please please do not send me on a wild goose chase to find a deal or a bit of information that you have advertised prominently in your email communications. Oh that gets my goat.com something fierce.
So again, the key takeaway? It's give away. Your content for free, and as simply and quickly as possible, that is. You want to give your audience every reason to read and engage and share what you're creating... not scare them away and fill them with fury. Topics: Internet, social_networking, strategy, web_design5 CommentsRead Full Post
DMDxd got a chance to chat with Janet Meiners Thaeler about her new book, "I Need a Killer Press Release, Now What??"
We will also be giving away free copies of the book on Friday. To win a copy leave a comment and winners will be chosen randomly on 11/20.
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What's your elevator pitch for I Need a Killer Press Release, Now What?
You've thought about pitching your news to the media. Now learn how to pitch your news to a search engine.
Why did you need to write this book?
Too many small business owners and PR firms miss opportunities because they don't understand SEO or know the power of online press releases. I've seen these methods work again and again and I want people to know how to use them for their benefit and for their clients.
Who should read this book, and who shouldn’t?
Anyone who wants to get online publicity for their business or for their client. It's a very practical guide. It even has templates for you to use and gives options for any budget.
While my book can be used for businesses of all sizes I don't go into detail about traditional wire services. I will in a future book.
Give it to us quick: Why can’t we just slap a standard press release on the Internet?
It just won't get the visibility you desire - you need to use a news distribution web site that has authority and gets your news on the top online news sources. I go over how to do this in the book.
Can you give our readers a few quick tips on making a press release “killer”
1. Use links in your press releases - not just to URLs but keyword links.
2. Include a boilerplate that gives all of the ways to connect with your business online (i.e. social networking sites)
3. Take advantage of trends to become an expert and get top placement in search engines.
4. Include a "call to action" in your press release.
5. After sending a press release, use the many free methods online to get your news even more visibility.
What are the differences between being a community organizer and an online marketer? And what are the similarities?
Here's a great blog post www.connectioncafe.com and chart about that. Sometimes these overlap because building a community online can make for powerful online marketing. However, it's just one part of online marketing.
Clearly in this day and age, print is not the end of the line. What are you doing to expand the reach of I Need a Killer Press Release, Now What? online?
It's important to have a print book - even if it's just sold on Amazon.com. It gets you credibility and there are lots of tools Amazon has to help you sell yourself online.
I set up a Twitter account @onlineprbook and a blog www.OnlinePRBook.com/blog I've partnered with folks like Joan Stewart of The Publicity Hound and PRWeb. I speak at events and conferences.
That said, I hope not to do another print book. They are so quickly outdated and I prefer an ebook. They just haven't reached the respect that an actual book has.
We love that you have a money back guarantee on your book. Do you feel it’ll contribute to stronger sales?
I'm not sure how many people know about it but if they did, yes it should. I also give free copies to bloggers if they agree to post a review. I've had people say the book was worth far more than they paid.
If the book is not enough for you, I'm preparing a DVD that will show you the main tools that I use. I walk you through the steps of keyword research, submitting your news and promoting it. It will be priced a bit more but it's me spending hours teaching you what took me years to learn. My video editor has already seen success just through passive learning he's done editing the DVD.
My Killer Press Releases DVD will be out next month (December 2009) - watch my site for more information.
And join Janet for her free webinar Wednesday the 18th on PRWeb.
Posted by Jesse Poe on November 16 at 12:33 PM
So you’ve seen the success of companies such as Comcast or Best Buy, who have used Twitter to not only engage their customers but also to interact with, satisfy and maintain them.
What if that model is not you? You work in or own a small business of twenty people or even less; you are effective and nimble, but unable to dedicate a person to man a full time social media outreach program, let alone a team. Your clients or customers are happy, because you do good work, but you see the opportunities passing you by in the more than present online world.
You see social media leaders such as David Armano at Dachis Group showing you models such as this one:
and however brilliant and well thought out, it is just not something you can achieve, because you chart looks more like this:
What can you do?
You’re not sure if your Twitter is even working, you send out good information, forward interesting links, and even get some RTs or mentions now and then, but the phone is not ringing with new business, and your inbox is filled with clients you won the old fashioned way, and hope you can continue to maintain.
First of all, if the above is correct you’re doing good. Your tie is straight your nails are clean, your basics are covered, you have a presence. It may seem small compared to others, but if the above is true than it is a quality group. If you manage accounts for artists and you have 1,000 followers, which are 970 spambots, 3 sports teams and 15 news feeds, you’re not really serving yourself, let alone your clients.
100 dedicated followers who you can interact with, who might actually pass your info along to other potential clients is what you need. And it will grow naturally.
So you have your basics covered and now you need to get noticed, you want to boost that natural growth. Protein supplements? No.
Get out there! Where is the conversation or where do you think it might be?
About 2 months ago (54 days ago to be exact) Google launched Sidewiki, I started using it and kept up a simple but active presence on it. It wasn’t hard to do, and I set up a simple approach that 50 days later got me mentioned on Google’s own Blog for offering up great insights.
Method:
Peruse my google reader each morning.
Keep in mind what I had read while writing our daily DMDxd blog.
Post the blog and then take that blog to where the conversation was going on, instead of expecting people to somehow stumble upon our blog hungry for a good read.
Excerpting, and extracting from what I had already written, adding a line or two to personalize to the conversation context I was placing it in a Google’s Sidewiki and then linking it back to the blog on our company site. Sometimes, if there was a lot of people talking about the same thing, I would link them to another article where my sidewiki would be, instead of directly to our site. This allowed them to see what others were saying as well and see my own comments in context and letting the strength of it speak for itself.
Results:
Traction and Engagement. It’s one thing if you invite friends over for tea, it’s another thing if you show up at their place with tea ready and some warm crumpets.
Raised Traffic. The increase in traffic was coming from referring sites such as Mashable, Gizmodo, ArsTechinca and places who wouldn’t have necessary promoted us, but bringing the conversation to them there, led people to us.
Featured.Google’s blog took notice and featured us here at DMDxd along with 9 others who they found bringing value to this new medium of interaction. Ranked 1,949 most important site, with Google itself being number one and Facebook number 2 (for perspective) you can imagine that traffic from this alone was well worth the extra 10 mins a day to take our blog to where the conversation was actually happening.
Posted by Jesse Poe on November 12 at 11:25 AM
This morning on PRBreakfast Club there was a nice post by Jess Greco on how Twitter isn’t for everyone, a subject we have talked about here before, damning magic bullets and such, but she has a funny aside that really should be amplified.
How many times have I heard this, just this month? Companies think this will win clients/followers/recognition ( and it will!), without imagining what they will have to do to achieve it.
Are you willing to organize all of your employees and teach them how to do the Thriller dance?
Going viral means that you have done something that is unbelievable, something shocking, something genius, something of intense dedication, something that touches the heart of many people, something racy, new, remarkable, unthought of, microscopic or macro to the extreme, brought black and white together to make more than grey, or just a funny baby.
So, can a PR firm, or Marketing/Ad agency make a viral video?
Sure, but are you willing to do it? The medium is free, and the tools to achieve it can be cheap or free, but you will have to do something. It won’t go viral because you simply will it to go viral. You have to have the courage to do something. And while you are getting up your courage, things are being passed around the internet daily.
The reason for it's viral-ness is obvious, furthermore the message is conveyed easily because it makes sense, and the call to action is clear. (Would have been even more viral had it been normal people on the street, look at the massive success of the new Flaming Lips music video launched yesterday, same idea but normal people.)
Did you follow this trend on twitter yesterday? You couldn’t read them all, they came so fast. How many times have you sat in a namestorm trying to come up with a good name? Here were thousands a minute and half of them were good. Had this trend been started by a company, trying to find a name and chosen one from the millions offered, it would have been an interesting success story and true litmus of what people thought of their celebrity.
How can you make a viral video… you know, like the inmates performing Thriller?
Hire talent, or listen to the talent you already have.
Step outside your comfort zone.
Get ready to do some work.
Make something you, yourself, would pass around if you stumbled upon it.
Stop thinking that repurposing old material will be something strangers will want to pass to their friends.
Posted by Jesse Poe on November 9 at 12:41 PM
One of the great things about blogs is that you can find out about so many wonderful and user specific posts, but primarily after the fact. It’s always the morning after.
Twitter has helped with that, but micro-blogging is also a deluge that can sweep your night away without you ever getting out to enjoy it. (or you day for that matter!)
Not only will this elevate the aforementioned, should have, could have scenario, it is an amazing possibility for business.
Thinking about how to use this now, will allow businesses to be ready at the gate when Twitter launches this.
Ok we know that at first it is going to be for certain locations using Yahoo!’s Where on Earth IDs (WOEIDs) such as NYC, London, San Francisco etc. as mentioned.
But just because Boise Idaho may not be the first place to launch, doesn’t mean that you can still get your ideas ready and in motion, and be all the more effective for it.
Here are few ideas as to how your business can start to game plan for this wonderful opportunity.
A tweet screen or kiosk where people can tweet that they are there at your place of business and receive a discount, free appetizer, etc. Much like Foursquare, but in a in house immediate response way, that would then drive the number of tweets about your specific business location into the local trending topics.
Reverse search, find the people who might be in your part of the city or neighborhood looking for the ball game or a quiet place to study for exams, reach out to them with twitter and invite them over, with clear and timely calls to action. (how much I would have loved this for the presidential debates)
Run specials on what people want and when. I’m looking for a new notebook to journal in, you’ve got them in your coffee shop, free cup of coffee with the purchase of a notebook. Once I’m there in your coffee shop, then the play yours, is the light right, is the coffee good, is the staff friendly and warm. No technology can make up for that, but it can get people in your door to find out!
The thing is to start now. Start thinking, how can I use local trends to engage my public? To find my public? To help my public find me? To give them what they want?
Start now, and remember that if the fit is not right, both you and your public will be uncomfortable with it. It should be a natural and creative adaptation of your brand.
Yesterday all eyes were on New York. Over 40,000 runners and for each runner how many came out to support? How many watched on TV?
A lot. Most of the world.
I was there with my friend Patrick Phelan cheering on his girlfriend Meg (one of NYC’s finest pastry chefs) who finished the Marathon in 4 hours.
Overwhelming the humanity of the Marathon. What a beautiful thing we all get together to make, collective joy, it sort of flies in the face of what the acidity of what most media tells us to believe.
People cheering each other on, calling out the names they read Sharpied onto runner’s shirts as if it were their own friends they were cheering on. Parades of high-fives, bands, people running for causes, people running for themselves and for each other.
What is the percentage of people who win? Well if you’re talking about the money prizes, pretty low, but without saying it we know who the winners are.
Take Aways:
There are so many lessons to take away from this kind of event, but there were two that I wanted to share.
We were at the official halfway point waiting to cheer Meg on and in the mean time the others before her. A band was playing covers of the Stones, Springsteen, Steppenwolf, the basic coverband cannon.
While they were soloing on the sidelines, I saw a slower runner stop a faster runner and ask him to take a picture of him. He did, the moment was captured, they gave each other high fives and the faster runner took off.
How valuable is your time? So he lost, maybe 2 minutes, 5 tops off his marathon time, but did it matter? It did to that
slower runner. It did to me.
Made me think about social media/marketing/PR. There are so many out there doing it, it would look something like the NYC Marathon to see them all together, but the number of opportunities to work are legion in comparison (if you’re doing good work), so really what is 5 minutes to stop and help someone slower than you, to follow someone on twitter who doesn’t have many followers so far, somebody new to the game.
We always want to help the winners, the faster ones, because they can help us, but what if we stopped to help the slower ones, would it take bread from our table. Probably not. What do you think?
And who knows, who those slower ones will become, remember the story of the Tortoise and the Hare?
As I was thinking of this and how maybe people should make twitter lists for people who are just starting, a we’re rooting for you list, or for example how some one like @chrisbrogan who’s following to folllowers is nearly 1:1 and then for example someone like @Armano is 1:4, I was broadsided by another take away from the Marathon.
A runner ran right up to me and gave me this card:
She gave me a few, so I shrugged and passed them to the couple standing next to me. So she was running the Marathon for her brand. And for her, too.
As we looked at the cards, we all said the same thing, “hey wasn’t that the lady who just gave us these? Cool.”
So she was running the marathon for her brand, she was running the marathon for herself. She is her brand.
And now she’s in the homes of the people she gave her cards to, and she’s on this blog.
Shameless, maybe some might say, but real, very real. She got out there and made it happen, I’d believe her if she tried to pitch me that she’s willing to go the extra mile for her customers, she was walking the talk when I "met" her, well running it actually.
And once I went to her site (listed on the card http://sofiaheadstrong.com) her site and what she does was consistent with the woman who ran up and put the card in my hand.
Are you out there where where your audience is, running up to them with a warm smile and your brand? And if you are are they finding a consistent image in person, in deed and in image?
Are you taking the time to help those slower than you?
Posted by Jesse Poe on October 30 at 12:16 PM
So a short time ago Björk bought the house next door to me, well a couple doors down to be exact. I have to say that although I agree with the Wire that Army of Me could be one of the top 50 songs of all time as far as "songs" go, I am not the biggest Björk fan. Nonetheless, it has made my neighborhood more exciting, more alive, more like New York.
Last night as I was coming home the windows to Björk's building were open and the sound of an acoustic guitar and an impassioned voice were bellowing out of the wide open windows. However, it was a Beatles cover and it wasn't Björk's voice, it wasn't even her window, it was the window below hers.
I had to laugh, you probably are too right now, thinking of the poor guy belting out his Beatles cover in hopes, in hopes! that he will be heard by Björk and she will help him land a record deal.
Not laughing at him, just the sweetness of it, the beauty of it, the innocence and humanness of it.
It could happen, most musicians do get signed as result of knowing the right people. By other musicians with record deals saying that they like such and such band and then next thing you know that band is signed. That's how I got signed for my first record, thanks to Godspeed You Black Emperor talking about my then unsigned record. Furthermore the other night at the Housing Work's concert/signing of Merge Records book Our Noise, Mac and Laura owners/founders of Merge (as well as Superchunk) admitted that they usually found musicians to sign through other musicians.
So not only is it possible, it is one of the few ways to get heard by a label.
So I found myself laughing for the remembrance of how to make things happen and the pleasure of it in such a pure example:
1. Open you windows and let the world hear you, especially the people who can make something happen.
2. Surround yourself with a creative/birthing setting. A place of inspiration and possibility.
3. Believe that if you are heard you will be rewarded.
4. Do it with all your heart.
5. Be excited that things are happening. That tenacity, passion and proximity to greatness will make you great.
I am sure that Björk will probably be buying insulated windows soon, but I hope that the guy below her doesn't ever realize that, because in his pursuit of the 5 points above, he will achieve something for sure.
He will find his voice, he will learn to use it, he will get good, he will gain confidence and although he might not be found the way he wants through Björk, his trying to do so will be found by others, he will get the attention of others, he got mine!
Posted by Jesse Poe on October 21 at 10:33 AM
A quick personal story of the "power of free" making money:
Last year I played at Terrastock 7 (a three day music festival of cult fame, American Apparel was even there making a film about it, looking forward to seeing that). I had the pleasure this time to play with one of Japan's greatest guitarists Makato Kawabato.
Instead of the typical cd sales plug from the stage, I changed my mind in mid-sentence,
"hey, there's so many great bands here with great records, so if you want my music, save your money, just bring me a cdr and I'll burn you whatever record of mine you want."
I can do that since I own the rights to my records.
I burnt a lot of cds after the show.
Success metrics:
Over next days of the concert, I never paid for a drink nor meal. People came back with friends and bought my other records. I was given cds as gifts which people had purchased from other artists performing that weekend. I was given artist prints, t-shirts, professional photographs, you name it. I played the first night and continued to sell cds the remaining days of the concert. People would come up saying they had missed my show but heard a cdr in the hotel of a friend and wanted to buy a record. Etc. I went home with more money than I had ever thought, and suitcase full of gifts.
The greatest result: Community. Many of the people who came to me with blank cds, are still in contact with me, they are a part of my community, which is better than a one time cd sale.
Isn't this the Google model?
How can do the same for your business?
We can help you.
There are many free tools that we use to keep our costs low, so that we can focus our efforts on tailored approaches to each client we work with. We stay up to date on the latest in an effort to always find the right tools for each unique situation. As an example, here is video of a new Google tool released yesterday.
DMDxd uses tools like this one to help people discover ways to grow their brand and find their audience. Helping them create meaningful relationships between that audience and their brand.
Join us tomorrow for our final segment with Mitch Joel, part 4 of this 4 part interview, where we discuss: The mystery of Bono, who to follow on Twitter, metrics and his book Six Pixels of Separation.
Posted by Jesse Poe on October 2 at 10:42 AM
Have you ever started down a street and then got a strange feeling, turned around, walked back to the corner and went down another street for no other reason than, the street felt wrong?
I make a point to always follow my intuition even if means I might look a bit silly, or have to go out of my way sometimes. The thing is though, there are no metrics on these things.
I never know if a piano didn't fall on my head because I don't go back to check, and then if I did go back to check how would I keep from getting into some sort of Schrödinger's cat paradox.
The good thing is that there are metrics on the T-Pain App I wrote about on 9/4 and 9/9.
300,000 + downloads in 3 weeks
14,000 + downloads a day
66 mins the average time spent on the app
12.5 the average times each have opened the app
4. 1 MILLION user-generated songs made by the users of the app
Now they have branched out with the release of I'm on a Boat by Lonely Island featuring T-Pain, lowering the price creating an engaging and fun youtube contest.
Amazing how simple success can be, and that it can actually be monitored, measured and maintained. The key is the simplicity, in contrast look at the failure of Ralph Lauren's recent QR code 10 step fiasco.
Reminds me of my first lesson on composition in high school art class: KISS keep it simple stupid.
Kudos to Smule for keeping it simple and on their success!
This morning I got a video in my email that I immediately put on my Facebook, passed it around my office and mailed it to my brother who is a bartender in Indiana.
We have all heard about the weird success of videos on youtube. With 20 hours of video uploaded to youtube a minute, what makes one video go viral and another not, well most of them not.
Is it the inclusion of famous people, it is being noted and spoken about by social influencers, is it being tech-savy, or perhaps having of the moment popculture relevance?
Let’s look at an opposing video unsuccessful video vs. today’s success.
Recognize this guy? Don’t worry if you don’t. Here’s the 10 sec. break down:
WASP college kid, “remixes” Lady Gaga to complain about how Obama is stealing his money, or maybe he means his parents money. He’s young, he’s “cool”, he even made it on a Macbook! But not even being blogged about by Meghan McCain or being featured by Perez Hilton made this go viral.
Watch it, tell me why you didn’t immediately put it on your Facebook page or send it to your family and friends? Perhaps because Seattle has some of the best social services in the nation, or that University of Washington, which is prominently featured in the back ground, is a great school that costs less than most Community Colleges thanks to taxes.
Perhaps it’s just that no one can connect to it for any number of reasons. Not even with an auto-tuner is it in-tune with what most people really feel (regardless what some news stations purport).
Result: since April 08, 2009 it has gotten 147,854 views one of which was mine.
Now how about this one: 648,298 views in the last 15 hours.
It’s smart, honest, funny, and most of all it connects to people in a way they want to share. If you attribute it to star power, then I guess the obvious question would be what about other viral videos without stars?
I am juxtaposing these two because of the content, they serve as perfect bookends.
Meghan McCain in describing why this "Lady Gaga" video was so great a sure to go viral said,
“Unlike the young conservative rappers, this video is self-aware—it is campy satire, and isn’t attempting to be taken as seriously as the Brooks Brothers-wearing rappers......It is just as important for us to battle with ideas as it is pop culture. And instead of letting the writers at SNL and The Daily Show have all the fun—more often than not making fun of Republicans—we should be fighting back with the power of our own viral videos.”
And here is a very serious, yet serously funny and attention grabbing video made by people who care about the subject for real, and care about the people it will effect.
I guess it comes down to the sincerity of what you do, not how you do it.
Maybe it is all the battle talk, we don’t want to do battle. We want to pass on videos to each other which mean something to us, that make us laugh, or feel good. Something to bring us together.
Ok, ok, I get it. Sometimes this stuff can be confusing. Let me see if I can briefly bring you up to speed on what experience design is all about. Fundamentally it is helping organizations know what to make and why.
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How can experience design help your business find a brighter future in these uncertain times? Whether you are a big player worried about losing market advantage or a young upstart experience design can help find the future faster. Topics: , leadership, strategy3 CommentsRead Full Post
Posted by on March 7 at 11:30 AM
When we ask people what they want they will almost always say more of the same. This is particularly true if the people we ask are invested in the existing product.
Posted by Nadia Ries Shen on February 7 at 8:36 AM
Today I attended the Intro to Interaction Design workshop with Dave Malouf. He made many useful references and gave us a good list of reading materials. We did a few sketching exercises throughout the morning as he emphasized the importance of sketching as an excellent means of brainstorming and communicating.
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Swift.fm is an amazing start-up that allows users to add audio information to tweets creating a radio-station style playlist of music (check out my office ambiance channel here) which is viral-enabled to allow users to engage content in various formats and contexts by highlighting their musical perspective. They are also a breath away from being the #1 Music-specific twitter client by traffic, and with their new platform of locked down branded-wrapped embeddable channels they are soon to be a swift force in creating brand identity, engagement and social conversation on the web (well even more than they already are). We talked about the future of Swift.fm and the future of the web and which direction we see it going: a direction that other like minds across town are quickly developing at diaspora* 
I had two eyes open all night as that not only am I interested in the internet (as it is my field) and especially as it relates to social networking and music (as that is my love), but also because I build social media plans for hip hotels and program their facebook pages in FBML. We toured the hotel and it’s famed analog sound system, met with the event planners and tried a variety of their special brews. Independently, Ed and I both took pictures of the Hotel/bar and showed them to each other, both photos were snapped with our iPhones, yet with surprisingly different results. My photo on the left, doesn’t look cool, but points out one of the cool features of ACE and it’s brilliant design; the curation of space through text and messaging throughout the space Such as this great use of the exit sign:
The great poet Terry Hummer once told me the secret to poetry was to take a flower and expand it’s beauty and properties to become as vast as the cosmos, or to take the cosmos out of the sky and wrap into a language and understanding so tight that you can hand to someone like a flower.
Topics: Internet, media, social_networking, strategy, tools 0 Comments
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