Is the information age killing spontaneity?

Just came back from a two week trip to Florida over the holidays, a significant milestone as it was the first time we took our daughter on a long trip. It also happened to be the first trip I took with a smartphone.

The travel experience has been completely transformed. Information in your pocket can really come in handy. With Google Maps, I could easily find  parking spots in South Beach or downtown Fort Lauderdale and find my back if we got lost. With Yelp I could get a quick review of a restaurant or find a good one nearby. And it’s nice to be able to look up phone numbers or hours of operation before heading somewhere.

But it can get out of hand as my wife reminded me when I refused to go to a restaurant due to poor ratings on Yelp. Sometimes you want to get lost in a city and go down random streets to see what’s around the corner. Sometimes you just want to happen on a funky restaurant (The owner of the Dominican restaurant Latin Star in Miami Beach invited us to try it and it was great and we also stumbled onto the West Indian chain Pollo Tropical and it was really good too).

Several years ago I backpacked around Australia and I remember a couple great days when my two hostel roomates and I rented a little Daihatsu convertible grabbed a map of Cairns area and just drove. We saw a road that was one of the windiest in the world and thought it would be cool to take. Then we saw a sign for “cathedral forest” and turned off there to check it out. Met up with someone I knew from a previous stop and asked him where we should go. He told us to check out “The Crater” (it’s actually called that) and it was a surreal place. We headed off to Mission Beach and then asked the hostel owner if there’s a cool spot to visit. She told us to check out Murray Falls a huge waterfall over a labyrinthine rock formation that created several swimming holes. None of these places were mentioned in any guide book (I was a Lonely Planet guy then) and it was one of the more memorable two days both for the experience and for the sense of discovery.

So by all means, use your mobile device to help get you out of a jam or find out stuff that will save time or money, but turn it off for most of the trip and just go with the flow. You’ll be thankful you did. Besides, a Conde Nast study showed that old paper guidebooks beat out mobile devices for efficiency anyway…for now.

Not a Great Year for the TTC

Toronto Transit Commission, this just isn’t your year. Transit City gave this city’s residents hope of finally getting an infrastructure worthy of the “world class” adjective. Then came the fare hikes only to be followed by a major rush hour subway closure and then this picture starts circulating around the net.

I googled this a few ways but have have yet to see any official response (feel free to post a link in the comments if you do). This is the social media amplification effect at work. Public transit is under public scrutiny. Public engagement will go a long way to earn the public trust.

One thing I’d like clarified as I have also not been able to find an answer. Will we see a commensurate tax credit increase (for metropass purchases) to go along with the fare increase? People will still be pissed about the fare hikes but at least mentioning the credit might have taken a little of the edge off…a little bit.

Personalized and Customized Works Best Online

There’s a key element to online shopping that can’t be replicated in the bricks & mortar world and it’s one that e-commerce vendors should take note.

1. The ability to browse endlessly through a multitude of combinations and permutations

2. The ability to customize ones order with great precision.

Or as Rory Sutherland put it so eloquently at TED

…if you’re on Expedia or you’re on easyJet you can interrogate your possible choices to a degree which, if performed face-to-face, would make you an asshole. If I spent three hours on the phone with a travel agent, and after three hours, I was saying, “And would it be 20p cheaper if I went on Wednesday?” unless I was an unbelievably thick-skinned individual, I’d be conscious of the fact that the guy was thinking, “This guy is a real pain.” Now, when I interact online, I can be as much of a pain as I like. I can be the world’s most-demanding, world’s worst customer and there’ s no one to mind.

That’s probably why travel was one of the first industries to go e-commerce mainstream. Not only are there psychological barriers but the economic incentives for commissioned travel agents are to get booked relatively quickly so they can move onto their next commission.

That got me thinking of other things where the online shopping experience trumps the real world because we don’t want to waste a sales person’s time.

Computers: Dell’s done well selling direct because for a lot of buyers, there’s way too many options, upgrades, and add-ons to consider.

Custom Clothing: They have your size but the wrong colour. The right colour but the wrong size. For some, clothing shopping is frustrating. Online shopping carries the uncertainty that what you buy won’t fit. That’s probably why T-shirts and shoes, which seem to have the most standardized sizes, have worked online. And when you’re talking customized a la Zazzle.com or Nike ID, the possibilities (and browsing time) are endless.

Delivered Prepared Foods: Pizza Hut sold over $1 million worth of pizzas through its iPhone application. It makes sense. There are way more pizza toppings than there used to be not to mention crust and cheese options. Why trouble a phone operator? Online ordering can work for a variety of take out food that’s often customized. Think Sushi, Asian takeout, and Rotis.

Cars: Ok, we still want to go to the lot, sit behind the wheel, take in that new car smell and test-drive our new baby. But then we come to unpleasant part, haggling with salesperson. Moreover, we’re haggling before we decide all the options. Sure, you can build and price most cars on a manufacturer’s web sites before entering the dealership but they never include the after-market add-ons or dealership specific servicing options. Once you pick your base model car, it would be great if you could go home choose all your options, consult with whomever you need to, then go  back to the dealership to make a deal.

The Leafs Get Social

Dave Fleet’s going to a Leafs game, makes an off the cuff tweet about it, then gets an @reply from @mapleleafs followed by a direct message from the Leafs new  inviting him on a pre-game behind-the-scenes tour of the ACC given by Jonathan Sinden, the man behind the @mapleleafs and a member of the Leafs interactive marketing team.

Surprised and delighted, Dave blogs about the experience. Looking at the comments, some people are suspicious, (as was I). Dave’s blog is well read and he has lots of followers. In a way, this seemed like they were scanning twitter to see who was tweeting about the game and then approached Dave because he had a large follower count. As it turns out, that wasn’t the case. Jonathan Sinden had the idea of giving an enhanced fan experience to one of the Leafs twitter followers and Dave just happened to tweet at the right moment. That’s what he wrote in his comment on Dave’s blog and I believe him because the comment sounds very sincere and doesn’t sound like it was cleared through legal.

I like how this turned out as a rapid response initiative rather than part of a tight strategy (and this coming from a strategist). What I mean by that is, I can’t envision a long discussion at MLSE over how this is going to further business objectives and generate a great ROI. This had a “Hey I have an idea to enhance the fan experience that won’t cost us much, let’s try it out” kind of feel and that’s something more businesses should start doing more often. Leafs tickets are among the most expensive in the league and rightly so given demand in this hockey mad city and as a result, there seems to be a lot of corporate types at the games (well, at least in the platinum seats). With a random acts of kindness like this, one feels that the team does care about the average fan.

I’m not really friends with [brand name]

So Razorfish puts out a new FEED report and all marketing 2.0 punditry is aghast.  All the happy hippie, trippy things we’ve been telling brands to do like authentically engaging our consumer in a meaningful dialogue using social media because it’s, er, social has been all for naught. Turns out, when people ‘friend’ or ‘follow’ brands, they’re really just looking for a deal. All that time and money spent trying to figure out this social media thing could’ve been spent on coupons?

Folks, the sky isn’t falling.  Take a look at the data:

56.5% of those who follow a brand on twitter and 63.1% who friend a brand on Facebook or MySpace do it for some reason other than getting a deal. Deal seeking was the plurality of rationales but not the majority.

Second, what did you expect? Did we forget our 1% rule? Our Forrester technographics? It only takes one click to follow or fan a brand, it takes a lot more effort to evangelize. That’s why there’s more joiners and spectators than creators and critics. Not everyone in your digital embassy is going to be a brand ambassador. Like a real-life embassy, some functionaries are there because the job pays the bills and offers nice benefits.

Third, yes they want a deal but they still might be exhibiting a preference for your brand. What the study should have done is ask those who indicated that they were looking for a deal, whether they friended or followed a brand’s competitor as well. I’d be curious to know how many Coke fans are also Pepsi fans, how many Nike fans also follow Adidas. True deal seekers, the ones a brand wouldn’t want to be friends with, are brand agnostic; they’ll take whatever’s the cheapest. A person who genuinely prefers Brand X and sees an opportunity to join “club brand” due to “special offers” might be thinking, “I’m a good customer, I deserve something special from you, Brand X, in return.”

Whoah, whoah, wait a minute. Is that how to treat a friend? You’re only friends with that guy with season’s tickets so he’ll take you to a game? What about his winning personality? You’re shared values? Please forgive the marketer trained on “brand personality”, “brand as a person”, “personae development” and “personal brands”  for forgetting that brands are not actually people. They are representations of something to be purchased so our relationship to them is fundamentally a business transaction. Sure there are people who worship at the altar of your brand logo but those valuable customers are the exceptions. Here’s the deal <bad pun intended >, the deal may be the impetus for them becoming a “fan” but providing them with an engaging experience afterward might convert some into “true fans”. Deals bring them in, experiences keep them coming back.

A corollary to this, maybe we’ve infused the word “brand” with too much meaning and associations. Maybe we need to back to a simpler definition. How about, “the intangibles that cause people to prefer and value one product/service over others”

From Webmasters to Content Curators

Recently read Rohit Barghava’s post Manifesto For The Content Curator: The Next Big Social Media Job Of The Future? and the first thought that entered my mind was how many new, semi-ridiculous job titles have been created since the dot-com era and how many more will likely be created in the future.

The Webmaster

My very first business card

You start off as a “web paduwon” and after rigorous training and a series of tests, you become anointed a WEBMASTER. What were we thinking? Was it a product of some D&D dungeon masters wanting to parlay their fantasy title into the real world? I checked Monster.ca, there were only two job postings for webmasters. The single wizard with mastery of all things web has fragmented into a large mix of job titles that actually describe what the people do web developer, web designer, information architect, etc.

The Content Manager

Used to see more of these and the job descriptions seemed to resemble that of a magazine editor (only the content was online) or that which  we currently call an “information architect”. I saw one posting on Monster.ca for a Content Manager:

This role will involve:

- Assisting in the planning of and responsible for maintaining the presentation layer of product offerings

- Maintaining relationships with clients and suppliers.

- Providing ongoing guidance and support to clients.

- Testing video and audio content for use on devices.

- Analyzing and troubleshooting issues related to platform.

Huh?

Content Engineer

This was actually a job title I held while freelancing for an agency in Australia at the turn of the millennium. I was an HTML coder; I’m not sure what was engineered and I don’t think actual professional engineers would’ve liked code monkeys sullying their professional designation much like sanitary engineers (see the second definition).

The Community Manager

Here’s one of the first web 2.0 titles that have come about. Community managers do important work listening to their constituents and evangelize the brands they represent. They tend to be skilled communicators and excellent at creating and managing relationships. But it’s sounding too much like content managers so I’m wondering how long this title will last.

The Content Curator

Rohit Barghava describes the content curator as “someone who continually finds, groups, organizes and shares the best and most relevant content on a specific issue online”. I bet a lot of people do this as part of their job and it summarizes a lot of people’s tweetstreams (myself included). I just can’t see this being a full-time gig.

These are just a sample. There are likely many more to come. Afterall, in Karl Fisch’s  Did You Know/Shift Happens series of videos, he states that the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004.

Passing Notes in the 21st Century

First of all. It’s great to be blogging again after a summer absence and I’m starting off by committing a bit of a blogger faux pas, I went to see Shel Israel speak at Third Tuesday and I’m waiting until now to write about it. Only I’m not really going to write about it per se.

See, one of Shel’s remarks about twitter was that as a consequence of twitter being so mobile friendly, more and more speaking gigs involved him lecturing to people’s foreheads as we live tweet his talk. And what is the nature of these tweets? They seem to fall into three categories.

Quotes

At every event I go to I try to live blog great quotes for future reference. The benefit to speakers, they get real-time feedback on the most memorable parts of their presentation. Shel had a lot of great ones, but my smartphone fingers have yet to catch up to my computer typing speed. I have but one saved one and it might be a paraphrase:

“Lethal generosity is the key to screwing your competitors”

Note Passing

Here’s where people make snarky remarks or arrange for post-event drinks usually during the presentation. This is probably why teachers ban cell phones in the classroom. Social media speakers love it. Afterall, the more tweets about the event, the more publicity for the next event. NOTE to bar owners and restaurant owners, need incremental business? Scan the twitterverse for upcoming events near your establishment and make a customized offer to participants in the event.

Asking questions

If you’re shy or just couldn’t think of the right question during the Q&A period, here’s your chance.

I’m definitely mis-using the term but there’s a certain augmented reality experience in participating, tweeting, and reading other people’s tweets during an event or presentation. It’s like you’re experiencing the same thing on different planes. Plus it lets you reveal you’re inside voice…in a respectful way.

How “normal” is Normal Distribution?

With so much talk in the past half-decade about “the Long Tail” it got me thinking about that other popular curve, “the bell curve”. In school, some classes were graded on a bell curve in order to “normalize” the marks across the student body, afterall, it’s called “normal distribution”.

But after seeing so much of the power law distribution long tail in action, from Pareto’s findings to countless examples in biology and physics, I’m wondering if grading according to the bell curve is more rooted in our sense of “fairness” than in reality. I’m sure there’s a sound statistical reason for it and I invite anyone to illuminate that for me.

In the meantime, I’m asking myself: Is normal distribution really normal?

Why Kids Don’t Dig Twitter

There’s been a slew of articles and posts pointing out that unlike Kellogg’s Trix, Twitter ain’t for kids (See here and here). Why? Here’s my theory.

When you go to school (from nursery school up to 4th year university), your social life is laid out right in front of you. Forced into classes where for the majority of the day you’ll be spending close quarters with 20-30 other people your age, it’s a trial-by-fire lesson on navigating the social landscape and that forms the basis of your social life. You make friends in the offline world and you enhance those friendships in the online world. Email and later Facebook were perfectly suited to this social enhancement.

Then you leave school, when you do, you leave the convenient social life. You’ve grown apart from many of your own friends and meeting new people now takes effort. Lavalife and eHarmony have built their business on this insight. Twitter did so unconsciously. As I tweeted a while ago, “Twitter let’s you instant message the public”. The public, not your friends, not your acquaintances, but people you haven’t met yet…but might like to.

This is the crux behind Dave Allen’s post, Facebook Linkedin Twitter – Past Present and Future. Facebook connects you with your past friends and your current friends online. LinkedIn for the most part connects with you with professional contacts you’ve crossed paths with. Twitter’s an open network. You follow whomever you like, you @reply whomever you like, and Tweetups are generally open to anyone who knows about them. Twitter is the social network where you get to know new people. Something you really don’t need to make an effort to do when you’re young.

Joel, Please Don’t Jump the Shark

An open letter to Joel Moss Levinson:

Dear Joel,

I was looking for examples of entrepreneurial Gen Y’s and I came across an article in the New York Times about you. It’s my all-time favourite social media story. While everyone else was getting their 15 minutes of fame and then moving on with their lives, you figured out how to turn a hobby into cash…by entering viral video contests

Then I saw this video for Murphy Goode. Joel, what gives? What happened to the playful Flight of the Conchord-esque videos. This one was too earnest, you were trying too hard. I know, you didn’t get the Tourism Queensland Best Job Ever and that was very wrong of them. It’s possible they just didn’t want to give it to you because you won so many other contests. When I was in Australia, Americans were seriously underrepresented among the backpacker population and having you as their resident blogger would have gone a long way to getting more US visitors.

Don’t get bitter on me Joel; keep the smiles coming. For the rest of you, here’s my all-time favourite.

For more Joel Moss Levinson check out his blog