Likemind

15 07 2008

Well I’m a bit embarassed that I’ve posted exactly twice in the past month. Lots of travel again, things got busy, the dog ate my homework, you know how it is. But I’ll remedy that forthwith - have a whole bunch of posts saved up.

First off, however, is a reminder that it’s time for Likemind again. It’s your chance to meet up for coffee and breakfast and conversation with other people in marketing, design, and digital stuff in Toronto.

Where: Over Easy, 208 Bloor Street West (map).

When:  Friday July 18, 8:00am.

Hope to see you there.





AAAA planning conference goodness

26 06 2008

So the big AAAA planning conference is coming up in a month. And a couple of good things are shaping up.

The first thing is if you’re a junior or intermediate planner with under 5 years experience, Planning For Good (which you can read more about here) is conducting a workshop on the Sunday before the conference starts.

You’ll get to work on actual briefs from two amazing organizations: Kiva.org (the microlender) and Witness (the human rights organization).  You’ll be assigned into teams and competing to develop the best insights, strategies, and solutions to a challenge they set out. Each team will be mentored by a leading planning director from the industry. After a day of working, you’ll present back to a panel that includes the PFG committee and the marketing directors of these two organizations. This all happens on Sunday, so you won’t miss any of the conference. The work with be showcased and presented during the conference and at a PFG event on the Tuesday evening of the conference. 

To participate, sign up for “Real Time Crafting” workshop when you send in your conference application and fees. Also note which cause you wish to work on (Kiva or Witness).

The second thing is the Minneapolis planning crew of Paul Isakson and Kelly Thompson have created a Facebook group for people who are attending the conference so we can make plans and connect beforehand. It will also be a place to discuss the conference as it goes, recap afterwards, and most importantly gossip about who had the best ironic t-shirts, designer sneakers, and funky eyewear (aaahhhh, planner fashion).

Additionally, they’ve proposed a cocktail gathering on Tuesday night at Shore Club’s Skybar for people to hang out and unwind on the last night of the conference. This may also turn into the PFG event. The details and RSVP can be found here.

Looking forward to seeing anyone that’s attending…





Likemind

16 06 2008

Likemind Toronto is this Friday. 

Same details as usual: come on out for breakfast, beverages, conversation and good times with people from the marketing, media, design and digital community in Toronto. And all at the same time as others are meeting in cities around the world. How cool is that?

Over Easy, 208 Bloor Street West (map).

Friday June 20, 8:00am.

Hope to see you there.





The purpose of information

12 06 2008

Neil and Leland have mentioned a great quote from Mark Zuckerberg (founder/CEO of Facebook) which gets to the original sin many brands are committing these days, thinking we can just build branded communities that people will flock to.  As Mark says, that’s clearly mistaken:

“Communities already exist.  Instead, think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do.”
This reminded me of my favourite Zuckerberg quote (as reported by Esther Dyson at the Web 2.0 conference last year):
“The other guys think the purpose of communication is to get information. We think the purpose of information is to foster communication.”
So true, so good. Once again, it’s all about the social object.

By the way, if you haven’t already, check out Neil’s excellent presentation “What’s Next - How Social Media Changes the Rules For Good”. It rocks the casbah. And Neil’s a super nice guy.





Coverage

4 06 2008

In meta-media news, my grammar of social media post from last week got picked up today by the Design Observer and then by Bruce Nussbaum in Business Week. All of which has led to a few thousand new visitors and being featured as one of WordPress’ fastest growing blogs.

So if you’re new here, hi. Thanks for coming. I hope you stick around.

The lesson here? At this particular cultural moment, writing about Obama, Clinton, and Twitter is a hot combination to get some press. Now if only I could figure out a way to get Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie, sub-prime mortgages, and the Lost season finale in there…





Wise words

2 06 2008

In a recent meeting, one of my clients came up with a bit of wisdom that I think sums up the changing business landscape nicely:

“Nervousness & ambiguity are core competencies of business today.”

Well said.





The grammar of social media

27 05 2008

For a social media presentation I’ve been looking at how different brands use twitter. One of the most revealing comparisons I came across is Hillary Clinton’s campaign vs Barack Obama’s (yes I’m Canadian, but I’m also kind of a US political junkie).

They’re both on twitter, and both use it well - regular updates, often a few times a day, along with calls to action and links to interesting press coverage or videos. Of course I’m guessing neither one of them is actually doing the updating, it’s likely an aide or intern in their campaigns. Which is a shame because the idea of a future POTUS whipping out their phone and saying “hold on, I just HAVE to twitter this” is kind of funny.

But there’s one big difference: if you sign up to follow Barack Obama’s updates, his campaign immediately signs up to follow you. So now he has over 33,000 followerers - and also follows over 33,000 people. Hillary Clinton doesn’t follow anyone - she has 4,000 followerers, and follows 0 people. Now there are clearly some demographic differences there (Clinton supporters tend to be older, Obama supporters tend to be younger, more tech-savvy, and also more loyal and enthusiastic) but I’m guessing that a big part of the difference is explained by the fact that Obama reciprocates the act of following.

It’s a small thing, and I’m sure most people realize that it’s a token gesture: he and his campaign aren’t actually sitting there reading each of our updates. But it’s an important gesture that shows he understands the grammar of social media. Clinton is basically using twitter as another broadcast medium; Obama is using it as a tool for connecting with people on an individual level.

In any social media, there’s an important psychological trigger that happens when someone subscribes to follow your updates - it’s validating, it’s rewarding, it makes people feel in some small way that they matter. In this case it also creates its own word of mouth, because it changes the conversation from “I signed up to follow Hillary Clinton’s updates” to “Barack Obama is following me on Twitter!” - really, which one is someone more likely to say?

Obama’s act of reciprocation also has one other side effect: because twitter shows thumbnail images of the people you follow on your page, Obama’s page now has a huge sidebar of images of people which makes the page feel more grassroots and more like a community. It makes it seem more like you’re joining something.

Does your brand understand the grammar of social media? In another post I’ll share a bit more from my presentation.





Likemind

15 05 2008

Somehow, this month’s Likemind is already upon us. It’s tomorrow - Friday May 16th - at 8:00am. Sorry for the short notice.  As usual, here in Toronto we’ll be at Over Easy, 208 Bloor Street West (map).

Now you may be thinking to yourself “well Jason, breakfast, hot beverages and meandering conversation with some interesting people from the marketing community sounds nice, but I’m still not convinced.”  So as an added incentive, this month the coffee is sponsored by Random House to promote Rob Walker’s new book “Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy & Who We Are”. Rob writes about consumer behaviour and his “Consumed” column is a weekly must-read in the NY Times Magazine. His blog Murketing is good too. I’m excited about the book.

Rob & Random House were even kind enough to supply some advance copies of Rob’s new book (the official release is next month) - but there are only a few so first come, first served…

Hope to see you tomorrow.





Beauty

13 05 2008

“Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.”

- RIP Robert Rauschenberg, October 22, 1925 - May 12, 2008





Brand Tags

12 05 2008

Noah has built an addictive little app - BrandTags.

It’s a way of mapping all the things brands stand for in people’s minds. It shows you a brand and prompts you to enter the first word that pops into your head. Simple and addictive - he launched it on Friday and there are already 40,000 80,000 200,000 (UPDATE: up to one million) responses.

Reminds me a bit of David’s project Brand vs Brand - also a lot of fun to play with.