ouroboros

"Getting it" and "Not Getting It"

Random thoughts.  You've heard the saw: some agencies "get it", some "don't get it". 

Seems to boil down generally to this:

• "digital" shops tell you "traditional" shops don't get (meaning, of course, 'understand' or 'do well') "digital", "social media", "viral marketing", or a host of specific functionalities - e.g., SEM, SEO, mobile development, etc., etc., etc.
• "traditional" shops tell you "digital" shops don't "get" "branding", "craft", "storytelling", or "advertising".

Behind those two positions are a few things, including:

• creative control, as in, "who's that stupid traditional agency to judge the unparraleled brilliance of my interactive idea when they don't know s--- about interactive or the specific nuances of the digital ecosphere?"; or, "who the hell are those untalented f-ers at the digital shop without a conceptual bone in their bodies to tell me about engaging brand stories when the best they can muster is a s--- tech app 'because its cool or because they can', rather than 'because its spot on with brand strategy?"
• client relationships (and with it, fees).  Digital shops often look to go straight to the client because they don't believe traditional folks they occasionally have to partner with understand their ideas well enough to represesent them effectively to the client, and traditional folks see digital folks talking about their ideas in isolation from the bigger picture - the old "if the only tool you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" problem
• The belief at many shops that "interactive is still an unproven medium being heavily pushed by the uninformed out of fear or because the market is telling them they have to", or that "interactive is the fundamental game changer that renders all previous communication prosaic and dated".

The problem?  Everyone is right.

More later.

I <3 NY.

How will we roll?

A stumper has been why the Mayans, for whom wheels were both sacred (in the forms of their calendaring and astrological systems) and mundane (in the form of wheeled childrens' toys) never 'discovered' the use of wheels as a tool for facilitating transport.  No wagons.  No hand carts.

In the future, what will they look back on us with disbelief saying "how could they have missed THAT application of technology?"

At least now you can get Maya wheels.

Clarification

<personal>
I got a comment on this, and it worried me - for the record, I was being sarcastic in my 'bio' when I said I "worked in video games until I became so wealthy I needed work only for love."  I hope my video game pals got the (bad) joke, but for anyone who actually thought I was carried in on a velvet pillow every day and ate peeled grapes and bonbons while living off the royalties from the episodic/node-based historical-narrative games I built in my youth - please revise your mental map. 

In spite of my best efforts, I am not fantastically wealthy, but I am happy knowing I do save lives every day by working in advertising, rather than being a doctor as my folks suggested.  Repeatedly.

</personal>

American Brandstand BS

Piece in today's NYT entitled "American Brandstand" focusing on brands stepping into the sucking void left by the "whipsawing" of the music business by "digital technology" completely misses the point.  The bigger story isn't about brands underwriting music - it's about traditional command and control distribution models being exposed as costly barriers to innovation and emotional connection rather than facilitators.  It's about a digitally-enabled new playing field and new players popping up in industries where they weren't expected.  That's a story - and one that will rewrite a lot of marketing playbooks.

Which should all be burned anyway.

This "whipsawing" crap is an excuse you hear in a lot of industries facing the digital tsunami and chosing to go down in their cellars rather than get out the boards and surf - the music industry industry didn't just "miss" the digital distribution revolution - they ignored it because their financial self-interest was wedded to another model.  When Hurricane Fanning hit the music business, the klaxons shouldn't have sounded only in the lawyers' suites - the business brains and creative hearts needed to sit down and ask themselves what their industry proposition was.  Maybe they'd have realized they weren't in the "music" business, they were printing houses whose medium of delivery was being eclipsed.  The future, now presently emergent,  business is "music experience" or "music supply" - regardless of format - and still offers phenomenal opportunity.

And then a couple of folks go on record in the article saying it's "not about the money".  Bilge.  Of course it is.  This isn't the corporate responsibility group doing these deals - the intention is to associate and by association drive sales.  Or you don't do it.  And for the bands, it's promotion.  And distribution.  And ultimately...oh right - revenue.

Richard Bishop of Cornerstone had a nice sound bite:
“I think in the world today, it doesn’t make a difference to the consumer if a record comes out on Warner Music, EMI, Red Bull or Diesel Jeans.  Artists may be better advised to put their music out with a brand to get better reach and bigger advertising.” 

Damn straight. 

Smart artists are using every loophole they can to explore new possibilities.  They are trying to extricate themselves from the burning building of the old music industry, while the record business is still running room to room trying to douse the flames with single-serve Evian bottles.

The story for me here is that while the lame end of the music business is floundering through a slow motion car wreck  trying to maintain their command and control CD-printing model,  new music experience/music supply players - iTunes, brands, movies, video games, you name it - are stepping in.

So where will this happen next?  Well...what's another command and control production distribution model?  Oh...how about...movies?  TV?  Books?  Games?  Advertising?

Brands with money to spend to create powerful emotional connections have the world at their fingertips.  But it's a messy world, to put it mildly.  Some will execute well, becoming new gatekeepers and kingmakers.  More will tank this thing, with their delicious brand mismatches and missteps excrutiatingly well documented.

We are all experimenting.  The brand lab is huge.  Music is just one tool - look for brands in more businesses than you'd expect.

Design - High and Low

Got a review copy of Adaptive Path's "Subject to Change".  I'm 100 painful pages in to this 160 page book that seems so far to be at least 100 pages too long.  In a nutshell: think about design.  Oh - and think different.  There.  You don't have to buy one.   The "quotes-by-interesting-people" sprinkled throughout the book only serve to show you that meaningful ideas and insightful thoughts lie elsewhere - in other books that you've probably ALREADY READ.  I am forcing my way through it just to see if there's a twist that reveals this isn't just an painfully long and patronizing Adaptive Path credentials presentation.  If there is, I'll glady come back and revise this entry.

Contrast that with Undoboy's new site.

 "Design Brings Happiness" he suggests, then he sells it to you in the form of his Superbastard toys.  Short, sweet, to the point.  Elegant.

"Karp Rocks", or "The Innovator's Dilemma", or "My Shiny New Mantra"

Thank you, Publishing 2.0.  Scott Karp's "Google AdWords: A Brief History of Online Advertising Innovation" is a post well worth the read for a look back to when Google's global supremacy was not a foregone conclusion.  In it, Karp lays out the historical context and decisions that set Skynet on their current trajectory.

At the article's conclusion, Karp says this:

"The challenge of innovation is that we are all boxed in by what we know, by our assumptions about how things work...The next Google-like innovation is right in front of us — we just need to see past our own assumptions."

"Forget what you know."

A life philosophy in four words.

Is Canoe the Cable Industry's Maginot Line?

The eBay TV ad auction marketplace died a quiet death.  The only real surprise was that this DOA defensive action's demise even warranted a story.  As I recall, this "coalition of the billing" was created to try to keep Google out of broadcaster knickers (Google was at the time looking for broadcasters to partner with to test their own auction-based TV model, and no-one wanted them mucking around in the special sauce.  eBay was easier.  Less threatening.  And uncompetitive).  With no real mandate, poor funding, lackluster participation and an agenda driven by fear, not innovation, I'm honestly surprised it lasted this long.  Did they finally go through all the stationary they had printed up?  Run out of creamers and call it a day? 

Next up: Canoe.  As in 'up the creek without a paddle'.  The cable industry sees Canoe as "[their] solution to the growing amount of ad dollars flowing to the Web."  David Verklin (ex-Aegis/Carat) had this to say:

"We will have all of this new data and features that can prove to clients that people are actually watching the ads."

Darn.  He could have said a lot of things.  Things like "I'm excited to examine how we can continue to improve our value proposition and provide real value for our customers and marketers?" or "Advertisers need to create more compelling viewer engagement experiences and we're here to help them make sense of the opportunities", or "Brands needs to serve their brand communities more effectively in an era of infinite choice", or "Cable and broadcast still command massive audiences and we are seeking new more creative ways to leverage those effectively for advertisers and respectfully for viewers?".   Naaaah.

TV (cable and broadcast) isn't going away.  Not by a long shot.  Among other things, it's getting smarter and more interactive.  Does the cable industry really need an industry group stuffed with folks not incented to innovate OR collaborate?  Heck - I was a sales guy once.  Damned if I'd have given over my best inventory - the stuff I could count on to help me hit my numbers - to a 'consortium' for the 'good of the industry'.

"Something that may concern programmers -- and damp enthusiasm: Because targeted advertising theoretically offers more bang for the marketing buck, advertisers may end up reducing their overall cable spend."

Unless there's more here than meets the eye (and there may be), Canoe, like the eBay SNAFU, strikes me as another Maginot line for an industry in need of forward motion.  Canoe may last - but not in this incarnation, and not with this roster of participants. 

"Why I HATE 360 marketing", or "VZW suffers from AT&T retention strategy jedi mind tricks"

This is the tray table I folded down on my American Airlines Flight.  I felt so dirty.  Like by unfolding the tray I was "opting in" to their ad.  "No, no", thought I.  Then I accepted a drink (seltzer,  baby, everytime!), and had to put it somewhere.

Damned by my own thirst.

I already had no room.  Getting the "can you hear me now guy" in my lap - boy, what a treat.  Did business class and First get this crap, too?  No clue.  But boy - a few hours of this smug gal and the irritating pitch hack dude - wow - do I HATE them now.  VZW's media agency probably got a great deal - can't you hear the pitch?   "Just think - high value target audience, limited visual distractions - and if they're delayed?  JACKPOT, BABY!  They may be trapped without food or water for hours on the tarmac at SFO, but you'll OWN them!"  (And the green jacket: wtf?  Niiiice propping.).  With rising aviation fuel prices, I gotta imagine this will only get worse.  I have nasty visions of being delayed at O'Hare in a cabin stickered up like a NASCAR vehicle, begging for the only food and drink on board: Brawndo and piss-flavored Chex snack bags.  For $14 dollars.  Exact change, please.

Hey - here's some "360 marketing" - put a person on the transcontinental flight who CLEANS THE BATHROOM after each use.  NOW I like your brand.  Barring that, put "can you hear me now" guy's face on the toilet paper.

Mobile Gaming and the iPhone

Opinion piece by Keith Boesky (ex-Eidos president) over on Gamasutra poses the question "Will Apple reinvent the mobile games space?"  While he doesn't mention N-Gage or Google Android OS, he raises some interesting points re: the financial implications/business opportunity for publishers, and the possibility for a "new age of gaming" where developers can build apps in their garage for love and for cheap again.

Key takeaways:

• 2.5 billion mobile "non-iPhones" globally, ~2% of them have downloaded ANY applications = install base ~50 million.  iPhone to top 10MM (est.) units sold this year, most will download apps (or sideload them through iTunes).  Arguably iPhone = 16% of the GLOBAL market for downloadable mobile apps.  (note: To enhance Nokia Game selling possibilities, Nokia is pre-loading N-Gage software on many of their devices.)
• Too often, Boesky notes, "Mobile games are developed to lowest tech specs" to allow maximal porting (the ability to redeploy a game on another device or form factor relatively cheaply), but apps built to lowest common denominator don't "cater to any unique attributes of any phone"...making for some pretty weak apps.  Or "Cr-apps".
• Not mentioned in the article, but relevant as well, is US Venture Capitalist Firm KPCB's $100MM "iFund", a pool of cash they've set aside to invest in companies that make iPhone and iTouch applications

The complete article here: http://tinyurl.com/5ywycy

I've been gaming since the early 80's (coding on my Tandy Corp Model I, level II) and in my experience, the mobile gaming experience on communications devices has sucked for years.  Most games were either crap or bad ports or both.  There are some promising publishers (THQ?  Glu?  Jamdat - oh wait...EA mobile) out there, but no-one's created the "must-have" mobile game. 

Why?

Big name publishers have looked at mobile as a hedge/defensive move/portfolio asset - not a serious focus.  console/PC titles earn bank, not mobile.  And unfortunately, investing for the future is hard when you've got quarterly numbers to make.

Carriers cripple the process with their soup of devices and form factors, tech and non-transparent dev/QA "testing" environments.  Want a game on their system?  Dumb it down to work on the devices with broadest penetration.  Or better, create a version that works on whatever latest device they're selling.  Which by definition won't have a big audience.  Minimizing revenue.   Oh - and they like exclusive windows.  Or they won't promote it.  No promotion = bad deck placement.  You see where this goes.

Independent developers didn't have the resources or portfolios to weather this crap.  So they've been doing web stuff.  Java, Flash. Facebook Apps. 

Which brings us back to the Apple iPhone SDK release.  And Google Android OS.  And Nokia's new-look N-Gage.  Apple's advantage out of the gate is homogenous devices and an iTunes delivery system, but...Nokia is working to open up its game dev systems (SDK's and API's), and devices should begin shipping soon with Google's Android OS. 

What form will the mobile Tetris, Pong or GTA take?  TBD...

Unlocking meaning

Reading Michale Coe's "Breaking the Maya Code".  Fascinating book not only for its tale of the decipherment of Mayan hieroglyphic writings over time, but also (a) the challenge of fostering innovation and change from within a system, and (b) the challenge of driving innovation or change in a system from without.  Even in a system ostensibly looking for answers to puzzles it hasn't solved.

Realizing there IS an issue to be addressed seems the first and most important step - because when one gets comfortable with the "way things are", it's amazing how easy it becomes to explain away the cracks - or not see them at all.

Coe, quoting Pope:  "There is a touch of magic about unknown writing, especially when it comes from the remote past."  Understanding lost systems of communication aren't just puzzles to solve, says Pope, but the keys to greater knowledge, "opening a treasure vault of human history through which for countless centuries no human mind has wandered."

Sweet.

iMedia Agency "Tidbits from Austin" p2

Rock solid start for Day #2 - as an Agency peep, we heard from Yahoo and Sportgenic...and Sportgenic managed to make an early morning, coffee-free room of media/agency folks surprisingly interactive...

Frikking awesome panel by John "Media-tronic" Durham opened up the morning's festivities with a star-studded cast of agencies and publisher/vendor people.  The theme was "trading places", and the idea was to share viewpoints of the 'others' with the others present - to seek out commonalities and isolate differences.  Following on the heels of Rick Parkhill's interactive opening the previous day,folks wer elooking forward to this one.  And the panelists did not disappoint.  Heck - John wouldn't let them.

Panelists included:

• Scott Witt (droga5)
• Chris Arens (DraftFCB)
• Helen Har (iMeem)
• Carrie Lane (Us Intl)
• Hugh McGoran (Platform A)
• Jennifer Samples (TargetCast)
• Adam Gordon (WorldNow)
• John Messina (AWS)

John roved the floor, posing questions to the panelists, and letting them (at times) riff:

Q. What are the biggest challenges in the buyer/seller relationship?
John aimed question numero uno at the Jeter of his lineup (props out, Arens!!!), Chris Arens.  Arens thought for a nanosecond then got the party started with "lack of communication, lack of respect, and tunnel vision."  Messina agreed, and wondered why publishers never hear back from agencies when they submit work for RFP's but don't make the plan...

Q. What does the other side do?
Samples batted first: "They ask really dumb questions, offer dumb solutions to the dumb questions they ask...and too often they are order takers, not solution providers".  Niiiiiiice.  Collective gasp.

Q. If you could strangle the neck of the other side over one issue, what would it be?
iMeem's Har: "Getting the RFP with a 24 hr turnaround, with no set budget.  And we need an "out-of-the-box solution. By noon tomorrow. With working mockups."
Agency-side Lane responded: "we send those RFP's with 24hr turnarounds often because the client asks for the same thing...the original request funnels through an acct director/AE, through various channels to media...we don't do it to be unreasonable."  She asked one thing: "if you need to say no, DO say no."  Then she used agency judo, and said "often, we have publishers who don't even respond to RFP's - they just go into a black hole."  Bam.  Whi-chaaaaaa.

--> Following up on an earlier Messina's point, John asked Lane, "don't you have an obligation to share whether a [publisher's proposal] has made a plan or not?"

"We do", she said.  "And we need to be your best friend.  Because we need to understand you well enough to pitch you to our clients"

Favorite interruption: Witt - "none of this is very interesting to me. I work in the idea business.

Q. If there is one thing you could change in the other side, what would it be?
McGoran: "Time management.  Our people need to be better capable of managing their time."

Note: this is the first time time management came up, and several panelists agreed mandatory training could be a good thing.  John had asked the panelists to pair off with each other, prior to the conference, and discuss their perspectives on agency/publisher relationships, which led to this:

Q. What perceptions do you have or that changed after your conversations with the other side?
Gordon and Lane noted that "there were more similarities than differences", but Gordon went on to ask buyers for a little "empathy".  Gordon went on: "there is no empathy on the part of buyers for what the sellers have to do to give them a compelling campaign idea for an RFP."  Whii-chaaaaa.

Recurrent themes:

Value of time/value of training.  Talent.  Resources.

Publishers ask: "Why is my innovative idea being assessed by a 25 year old ding-a-ling?  Who knows less about the stuff than I do and who was doing tequila shots 10 months ago?"

Witt: "Media shops place too much emphasis on spreadsheets and machines, not intuition."

Lane: "There is a sense of entitlement amongst younger folks.  They are harder to train.  Some are not as trainable as we'd like them to be.  Simple decorum - manners.  Picking up a phone rather than sending tons of emails."

McGoran notes: "It used to be easy to get a meeting.  But things have become so fragmented there isn't time to meet.  To develop a relationship."

Q's from the audience:

from Topix, to the agencies, "You want custom, but you want turnkey.  Why can't we meet with the client?  how does a 25 yr old rep know how to talk about my package to a client?"

Jeff Cole of Agency: "When does publisher get involved in a client discussion?"

Har - "I see an issue with seeing the agency and publishers as separate."

McGaron - "We have relationships with your clients too...they come to us directly...the client thinks something gets "lost in translation"...it's not to do and end run, but to keep client insulated isn't a good thing."

Nice exhcange between Arens and McGaron:

Arens: "I am ok with you talking to my clients, just not talking cost."

McGaron: "Of course!  Of course!"

Arens: "You say of course, but this "ground rule" gets crossed all the time..."

Q. The one piece of advice/idea you have to make things better?

Messina: "the overall relationship is critical...it's getting automated to the point that facetime is lacking - we have become an RFP industry.  That has to change."

McGaron: "We need to distribute our knowledge down through the ranks [re: training].  We sit here talking  heady best practices, but we need to spend more time managing and training."  This comment came from a general theme that I'll paraphrase: "young folks [publisher-side salespeople, agency-side buyers] with no training, decorum or time management skills were making life a lot more difficult than it needed to be in our space."

Scott:  "I don't care about most of this - I care about ideas - we are all [media+creative+publishers] in the business of ideas, we just see it through different lenses...there's no problem that good design can't solve...and if we look at ourselves as being in the 'designing solutions' business, not the 'RFP' business, we'll be in a better place."

Sweeeeeet.

Notes from Panel #2: "Making Sense of Metrics"
Jonathan Adams, Moderator (Digitas)
Adam Gerber (CMO Quantcast)
George Ivie (Pres., CEO Media Rating Council)
David Smith (CEO Mediasmith)
Young-Bean Song (VP @ Atlas - Analytics & Atlas Institute)

Gerber: "Planning has no relevance to buying and delivering a campaign.  Panel-based data fails to be the backbone of an addressable marketplace." [it was noted later no panel-based data folks were ont he panel...]

Smith: "When you buy Yahoo, you are effectively buying the homepage demos, but you don't get those demos unless you actually buy the homepage."

Gerber:  "The web is not a page-based medium anymore.  Page-based analytics fail to provide the level of detail that planners need to evaluate distributed planning opportunities." [disclosure: Gerber is CMO of Quantcast, a company with its own "open internet ratings" system]

Young-Bean: "The last ad clicked is an absurd measurement for creative efficacy." [disclosure: Atlas just came out with a new product for "engagement mapping", which apparently tries to adderss the "94%" of activity that takes place prior to the last click to transact]

Gerber - "It's not about the DR metrics, as brands come online -  at the end of the day it's about the creative and the product offering - our people pull numbers to rationalize decisions, but we don't know where the data comes from or how to use it."  Sweeeeeeeet.

Q. how do we build data metrics model that alow for intuition and ideas?

Gerber:  "Look, 80% of business is still spots and dots."

Yoooowch.

iMedia Agency "Tidbits from Austin", p1

I had the pleasure of being invited by the great folks at iMedia to attend the iMedia Agency summit in Austin over this weekend and through today.  Here's my notes on it, as I try to share what was a pretty remarkable experience with the folks unable to join.

Monday morning saw the agency folks getting breakfast and presentations from first DoubleClick, then  Google.  More DFA than you could shake a stick at.

Rick Parkhill tipped off the main session with a series of questions that revealed work to do in the relationships of agencies and media companies...

Russell Simmons, impressario and "Do You" author then took the stage.

.

He popped "Global Grind", though he "didn't have his notes" on the new site of  "Godfathers and filters".  He warned Al Gore that with regards to Global Warming, Pelosi and Gingrich didn't "speak" to the hip hop community.  So he single-handedly got Fat Joe and Fiddy on board.  Much positioning of the "Hip Hop community" as the best arbiter of brands - multi-cultural, owners of their own evolving language, proud when they get "big".  According to Russell, the "HipHop Community" loves the American Dream so much they are proud when they get a piece of it for themselves.   And if you want them?  Weeeellllllllll....you gotta hire Russell.  Heck - for the right price, he offered to drive a VW around the Hamptons.

IMHO, 'Interaction with the audience' shouldn't be a replacement for not having prepared anything beyond a promotional plug for a new property.  He just launched a global web property.  With his unique insights into the "Hip Hop Community" to whom the site is targeted, I asked 'what will you do to launch Global Grind that would be new/useful and leverage digital media in ways particular to the target?" 

The answer (as best I could reconstruct it):

"Offline.  Breaking it like an old school album.  Radio. <pause>  We are still working on the business plan.  <pause> Grind'll have a "presence" in social networks, with applications, <pause> and Facebook, and... etc., etc.". 

You get it.  Global Grind is still looking for the sauce, folks.  Some strong sauce.

[NOTE: other agency attendees pointed out that Russell hung out, and was available to talk after the keynote, and that many felt those conversations were great.]

Next up came Joey Dumont from Questus - whose speech didn't join him on stage and made for a rough start - moderating "can you really monetize social media?"  Patrick Keane from CBS, gamely tried to respond - then a slightly overwrought Dumont unloaded a Murdoch admission of a failure to monetize social nets...Jack Myers responded that it "doesn't make much sense listening to News Corp about monetizing social networks". 

Whi-chaaaaaa. 

Navarrow from Global Grind says yeah, Facebook is ok, but MySpace is still growing...nice and frisky up there.  Favorite quote from Patrick, sitting in for Quincy - "there is a lot of creepy shit you can do to target a user - believe me, I was at Google for years, I know what you can do..."

Buzzword namecheck:  Viral Marketing vs. Viral Expansion Loops...it's catching...

Jason Burnham of Burnham Mktg: "Social Networking will be a browser based or app based system, rather than a walled garden...I look @ social networks as a RM channel to find brand advocates, not a display/branding channel...brand ads on social nets are less effective as people are more engaged" - not much objection from panel, interestingly...

Question from the crowd: "So specifically, rather than theoretically, what have you sold or gotten done?" - Patrick talks about March Madness, sold on a 'sponsorship' basis...Myers talks about UGC - says marketers are launching their OWN consumer communities, but that since they need to promote those networks, social nets are a way to advertise..suggests funding coming from social/PR outreach rather than ad budgets...Patrick from CBS cites LastFM for Pontiac (CPM and sponsorship basis)...lumpy lumpy weak sauce.

Master classes: 'ad networks' was the SRO favorite but rowdy, and some agency folks and publishers were concerned there was network bashing and a little "over-the-top_itude going on... 'email' and 'local' treated by the attendees as small and specific, respectively were more sparsely attended, but apparently benefited by the smaller size and the apparently well-prepared, non-pitchy presentators.

Then speed dating.  More on that later.

Wow.  60 presentations, ranging in length from 60-90 seconds.  If you ever want to test out your new people - sales, media or publishing, have them deliver your value proposition in 60 seconds.  (a) they should be able to do it, and (b) jeepers, it's a great tool to teach folks to get to the point quickly - or "bottom line" it :-) - I'll do detail on the folks that presented when I'm back at the ranch.

I hate Safari. Again.

Why do you crash - oh sorry, "quit" -  "unexpectedly"?  And why pop up an alert box to tell me you've crashed "unexpectedly"?  Don't I already know that?  Safari - you are why I don't entrust myself to complete entombment within the cocoon-y white softness of the Apple ecosystem.

Additional RSS fodder for your brain/reader

W+K's newest inter-wunderkind, Melissa Sconyers, started recently in W+K's NY office. Her blog makes for a great read.

Some recent highlights:
In a great riff on Twitter, she outlines key usages and why its such a polarizing (but inexorably advancing) tool. She and Gaia Brown (W+K's other Twitter-kind) have been having some really interesting conversations on this front -

And her attempt to get "Befoogled" into the OED. Solid.

Thanks for the Update, Sony

Having a grumpy Monday, folks.

"Playstation will reclaim lead" as the world's leading console manufacturer, said an article carried by the BBC and picked up by the NYT. The best? The headline is pulled from a "quote" from the head of their console gaming division. Geez. Pinch me if I missed it, but where is the story here? This "reportage" reads like cue cards from an investor call. Can anyone tell me why this is news? Or why it got a greenlight through major media outlets?

Amplifying the awesomeness, the forward-looking folks programming the big and little screens offered these bromides at "Digital Hollywood":

"Consumers today have more control over their lives than ever before, in terms of what they'll do and what they won't do. We have to change the way we create content to make sure we're giving them content they actually want."

Imagine that. They're finally smelling what the Rock's been cooking for a DECADE OR MORE. Ouch. Accckk...Thhppfffffft. Did anyone else have tickets to this wake? ANYTHING good come out of it?

GTA IV v Iron Man

When I was a sprout coding games in BASIC on my TRS-80, there seemed to be a lifestyle distinction between movies and videogames: socially inept geeks like myself played videogames, guys who could get dates took them to movies.

If that distinction remained, GTA IV vs Iron Man pretty much obliterated it.  The two are now entertainment options, vying for your limited mindspace.  And they serve distinct needs in that spectrum.  Blue Ocean Strategies talks about expanding your competitive set to include other "options", not just obvious direct competitors.  Should publishers of killer franchise titles (Halo, GTA, Sims, Anything Wii) and franchises-to-be (Spore?  Star Wars: Force Unleashed?, etc.) consider movie release dates in their own release schedules?

When Ben Stiller's Heartbreak Kid tanked the film industry cited Halo 3 as a culprit, but c'mon, would any self-respecting HALO 3 player be caught riding that Ben Stiller crap sled?   Waa Waaaaaah.

This past week, when bleary-eyed gamers finally let drop their game controllers from their sweaty paws, they had probably already thrown their significant other a bone: "hey, though I'm gonna play GTA IV for 26 hours straight, let's take a break for a movie together. Some quality "us" time."  And guess what film they probably took them too? 

Iron Man and GTA IV - like chocolate and peanut butter.

Clay Shirkey's Web 2.0 Expo SF 2008 Speech

NYU's ITP prof Clay Shirkey, author of Here Comes Everybody, riffs on cognitive surplus, where people find the time to spend with interactive media, social mapping of crime in Brazil, "it's better do something than nothing", LOLcats and sitcoms.

New Process Motivational Posters

Wet Morning in London

I am amazed at the sheer volume of water a single London delivery truck can elevate through its passage into a sidewalk tsunami. Absolutely brilliant.

It scares me that

Patagonian toothfish are sold under the name Chilean sea bass.
Rasphead Rockfish are sold as Pacific Red Snapper.
Hide your children. 

And DON"T ORDER THE TILAIPIA, which could be a soft, gelatinous bottom dweller that feeds on waste matter.  Or not.  But I swear to god they served this treat to me in High School.

.

TIlaipia?  Lumpfish?  Mix it with mayo and slap it between two slices of Wonderbread and let your colon sort it out.

"Houston, we have a PR problem", or "it's called social media for a reason".

[image from SETINet]

No sooner did I finish that last award-winning post than I got a note from Gaia (W+K's tweet-monitoring  Walt Winchell) about Chris Brogan's eloquent slam of a spamming PR flack (freelance or whatever), generating a chorus of positive support.  It's worth reading his post and the responses - let it suffice to say that spamming PR releases as part of a "360 marketing effort" in the hothouse of the blog-o-sphere can pretty well sink your boat before it's launched.

And that if you want to play in social media, understand the social contract it implies.  Like...oooooooh...being social.

"Hillary Clinton is stalking me", or "why is Hillary behaving like a bad brand online"

I recently posted about companies using 'Google Alerts'-type apps to monitor activity around terms of particular interest to them.  I did so in the context of my having slagged a company that in turn, responded too quickly and politely to have 'casually' come across my blog.  So I assumed they were using alerts.  I fleetingly referenced Hillary Clinton, as in

"...they could go Hillary-in-Pennsylvania on your "Bitter" self."

Then things got silly.  If I'm too believe this post, Hillary herself, no doubt checking her RSS reader late last night, must have also 'casually' come across my blog, and felt compelled to respond:

"I really appreciate your comment about me being bitter. I'm going to work on that. If you have any additional feedback, please don't hesitate to contact my campaign directly. Again, thank you so much. Take care."  Posted by: Hillary Clinton | 2008.04.15

You know, Hillary, I didn't say you were "bitter".  In fact, I was commenting on the Obama comment fracas in Pennsylvania.  But I find it interesting that YOU think I think you're bitter...

Ah!  Ah! Ah!  Stop it!  get out of my head!!

This is crazy.  So there are alerts and auto-responders and now government officials and their campaign staffs are monitoring our online communications and inserting themselves into the dialogue after misinterpreting comments.  If she were a brand, and you can be damn sure she is, she's just become the "trendy vicar', "dad at the disco" type that all too often stumbles our way.

But to be fair, here's a test: I'l put a comment about each dem candidate and see who (auto) responds first:

- Barack Obama is a poor bowler and an even worse maker of Feta cheese.
- Hillary Clinton is poor astronaut and she spams me online in my comments section

Game on, candidates.  Who'll correct me/mollify me first?

Google Alerts, or "You can blog, but you can't hide"

I've noticed that often when I ding a specific company here by name, I get a darn quick followup.  This is in contrast to the soothing silence with which most other posts fall into the blogosphere and sink below leaving nary a ripple.

This tells me a couple of things:

1. Some companies are doing a pretty good job at monitoring online activity around their names and business interests (especially when they are one and the same).  Now maybe that's just because they signed up for 'Google alerts', but it at least indicates they are listening. 

2. Companies are starting to figure out how to engage in dialogue.   And they are doing it.  Quickly.  By way of example, I "discussed" 'Strutta' and 'I Beat You' (two video competition sites), in a previous post, and in a nanosecond (I swear!) Jordan was back to me with this:

"I am sorry that you felt that way about our initial release.  We're the first to admit it is anything but perfect presently, and we're working to make improvements. Anything we can do to help folks give "a flying hoot," as you say.  In any case, I extend my sincere thanks for you taking the time to have a look."

Jordan's a Strutta guy. And while I may not be crazy about Strutta's "initial release", he's engaged me very positively and respectfully.  If this were my start up, and some blog joker talked smack about my baby, you'd have to pull me over and put me and my  astronaut diapers in lock down.  So Jordan: nice work.

3.  The blogosphere is the kind of place you better write with the understanding that anyone anywhere can read your musings.  Most won't, but those who do may be polite like Jordan, or they could go Hillary-in-Pennsylvania on your "Bitter" self.

Are your alerts on?

Crap Powerpoint

PLEASE send me the WORST POWER POINT SLIDES you can.  I'm not talking about visual design, though that's ok, too - I'm talking slides that are an insult to even be obligated to read. My favorite from recent memory was this:

Passion = Engagement

Yep.  that was it.  And they gave us plenty of time for it to sink in. 

Don't worry, I won't let anyone know who it was that brought that one in and hung it out to reek.

What have you seen?  Email me @ renny.gleeson@wk.com.

Brian Oberkirch Blogs Like it matters

Two rock solid posts from Brian worth a read:

"Unmarketing Notions" and "Marketing is not a tax you pay for being unremarkable".

The man has got it going on, and will be coming to PDX shortly...