Water is free, but we pay for the privilege of filtering.

Air is free, but we pay for the solution of conditioning it for summers in our homes.

Natural gas is free, but we pay for the importance of safety in its use.

Oil is free, but we pay for the welling and distribution.

When we get down to it, all the things we could have for free we’re willing to pay for, because where needs are met, value is gained.

If you meet the needs of your audience, why would the value you bring be free?

Your Value originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

If you’re in the Toronto, Ontario area on July 26, make sure you keep the day free for what promises to be one of the city’s leading social media and business events this year.

Top business and marketing folks Gary Vaynerchuk and Amber Mac will be keynoting at the inaugural Social Mix, presented by Jugnoo (hey, that’s where I work!). They’ll be sharing their insights and expertise on what it takes to succeed both online and offline, and how to build your business for long-term success.

Alongside Gary and Amber, we’ll also be bringing the highly respected Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston, co-authors of the new Marketing in the Round book, and two of the most influential voices on marketing in the social media world today.

As well as shaping up to be a kickass event, there’s a great cause we’ll be donating all proceeds to in the Remix Project, a Toronto organization that helps marginalized youth become the creative change makers of tomorrow.

It promises to be a great event, and one that will offer great insights to all attendees, from solo entrepreneurs to small-to-medium business owners and much, much more.

Check out the full Social Mix website for more details on the event, as well as the schedule and how you can buy your ticket(s) to join us on the day.

And as a special bonus, all JugnooMe users will be receiving a 20% discount on ticket prices – so if you haven’t signed up yet to try the JugnooMe beta, now’s the perfect time.

Cheers!

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Join @GaryVee and @AmberMac in Toronto July 26 for Social Mix 2012 #SoMix2012 originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

The news release is dead, yet we still count print publication mentions as a measure of success.

Advertising is dead, yet we still spend almost $120 billion every three months.

Blogging is dead, even though the platforms reporting this are built on blogs.

PR is dead, despite it pervading every part of a business from customer service to branding to HR and more.

Seems everything is dead, even though we continue to use all of these corpses today.

Great to be alive, eh?

Everything Is Dead originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

We all want to be famous, whether we admit it or not.

We all want the glory of recognition for our work; our media; our creations; our results. To say otherwise is to lie. Of course, the thing is, there are different levels of what we want and how we want it.

Thankfully for those that want it, whether it’s deserved or not, social media allows us to live out our narcissistic fantasies and be as famous as we believe we should be.

Fame, though, can come in many forms. There’s the type of fame that Mike talks about; but that’s where we seek fame but don’t really say as much. Then there’s the well-deserved fame of a job well done, despite not really being famous at all.

And then there’s the self-proclaimed fame. But is this fame, or infamy? Can it even be called fame, when it’s a self-imposed title? Perhaps the fame is there because of the irony around the self-proclamation?

Them’s Mighty Big Words You’re Using

Say, for example, you call yourselves “the standard for influence”, like our friends at Klout. That’s a pretty mighty title to give yourself. Can they live up to it?

After all, Klout does have at least 100 million users being profiled, so that’s a hefty number, and one that should stand for the standard of influence, right?

Eh, maybe not.

Considering there are approximately 900 million users just on Facebook, so 800 million short there. Or 200 million on Twitter, so only half the number there. Even LinkedIn, everyone’s favourite-but-not-really network, has 131 million users, so Klout’s missing 31 million people there.

Even if Klout were to say they were just “the standard for ONLINE influence”, there are 2 billion people using the web. TWO BILLION.

So, in the grand scheme of things, 100 million is like a wet kiss on the cheek compared to the back-seat virginity loss and post-coital cigarette it desperately wants to be.

Self-Proclamation and The Wanky Word

There’s nothing wrong with being confident in your abilities. There’s nothing wrong in being proud of your achievements, and sharing them with the world.

That should, actually, be a given, since the world is hard enough to succeed in at the best of times – so true success deserves to be highlighted.

But saying you’re something you’re clearly not isn’t a statement of success. Nor is it a statement of intent or a goal – if it were that, the line would go something like “aiming to be the standard for influence”.

At least that approach is being honest, and people will cut you slack.

But calling yourself the best or standard when there’s a clear difference between the claim and the actuality?

That’s just kinda wanky.

image: natebeaty

Social Media, Self-Proclamation and the Wanky Word originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

One of the great things about self-hosted WordPress blogging is the amount of plugins available to help you make your blog just the way you want it.

For anyone not on WordPress, plugins are additional solutions that you can install to your site’s admin area, and they then offer extra functionality to your blog and how your readers interact with it.

These can range from social sharing options, design tools, subscription options, e-commerce solutions and much more.

In my last post, I spoke about the process that went into the redesign here, and Ken Mueller (an awesome part of anyone’s blog community) suggested sharing the plugins I use on here.

So, here they are.

1. afterRead

If you look to the bottom of my posts, you’ll see a simple reminder to subscribe to the blog. This is created using afterRead, a great little plugin to offer a call-to-action to your readers after they’ve read your content.

2. Akismet

One of the most-used anti-spam plugins around, Akismet is one of these plugins that’s pretty much a given on any WordPress site or blog. As well as blocking its idea of spam, it’s also pretty effective at learning from your manual filters to improve its anti-spam filters.

3. Align RSS Images

This one is more cosmetic, as it’s a plugin that works on your RSS feed (this is where subscribers can read your blog). What I like about Align RSS Images is that it keeps the image formatting used on your blog post in the RSS feed, as opposed to losing the alignment like normal RSS feeds.

4. BackupBuddy

Probably one of my favourites, and definitely one that any blogger serious about their content needs, BackUpBuddy saves your content, widgets and themes in case your site crashes. It also makes migration to a new host or server super easy. It’s a premium purchase, but highly recommended.

5. Clicky for WordPress

For any site owner, analytics are key to monitor reader behaviour and where your traffic is coming from. Clicky is an awesome alternative to Google Analytics, and less scary for the average blogger. My friend Brankica wrote a great overview of Clicky – check it out.

6. Clicky Popular Posts Widget

While not a standalone plugin per se, the Clicky Popular Posts Widget is a nice addition from developer Konstantin Obenland that monitors your analytics and shows the most popular posts based on visitor interaction, as opposed to social sharing or page visits. Which, for me, is more useful.

7. Fix RSS Feeds

One of the possible dangers of changing designs or web hosts is it can mess up your blog’s RSS feed, and your subscribers aren’t aware of new posts. Fix RSS Feeds does exactly what it says on the tin, and fixes any errors caused by a migration or design change.

8. Genesis Responsive Slider

Officially my favourite WordPress framework, Genesis (affiliate link) offers a rock-solid theme platform with great plugins. Like the Genesis Responsive Slider, which offers a cool slider gallery for images which also resizes itself based on the browser you visit on (including mobile). A very cool plugin, and used on this blog’s home page.

9. Genesis Simple Edits

While I did the redesign of this blog myself, I’m no coder, so plugins like Genesis Simple Edits are hugely useful. It allows you to edit your footer code, as well as post meta and byline without messing around with the style CSS. So, perfect for coding idiots like me.

10. Genesis Simple Hooks

Again, perfect for non-coders (although more experienced WordPress users will make this plugin sing), Genesis Simple Hooks gives you a ton of control over various aspects of your blog, and singles out the area you want to change then lets you insert code without touching your main CSS.

11. Google XML Sitemaps

While your blog might be full of awesome content, if the search engines don’t know how to read it properly, you’re screwed. Google XML Sitemaps makes it easy for search engines to index your blog and point people to the content they want to find.

12. Gravity Forms

Along with BackupBuddy and Livefyre, Gravity Forms is one of my favourites. Much more than a simple form builder, this plugin lets you create contact forms, add pricing options, create feedback questionnaires and much more. Incredibly flexible and worth the purchase price.

13. Livefyre Realtime Comments

One of the best parts of any blog is the comments section, and Livefyre is the best comments platform bar none. Realtime updates, social network comment integration, friend tagging on Twitter and Facebook, commenter moderation and way more besides. Oh, and the new Livefyre 3 is due imminently and plain out rocks (sneak peek below)!

14. Login Lockdown

Like any popular product or platform, WordPress attracts its fair share of hackers. To help prevent your site being compromised, Login Lockdown disables sign-in attempts if the wrong user and password details are entered more than the amount of times you set. Very useful.

15. Premise

For any bloggers looking to monetize their blog (or simply grow traffic), Premise (affiliate link) is perfect. From the guys behind Genesis, this plugin lets you create landing sales pages, membership site solutions, social sharing for extra content options, and much more. Very comprehensive, highly recommended.

16. RSS Cloud

Because not everyone knows what an RSS feed is, the RSS Cloud plugin is a great way to make it easy for readers to subscribe. It points RSS Readers to the right format and content, makes the subscription process easier, and also updates servers when a new post goes live.

17. RSS Footer

There’s nothing worse than writing great content, then seeing an automated feed scrape pull your content and used on another blog. RSS Footer offers some protection by inserting a link and copyright at the end of each post, and linking scraped content back to your original source.

18. SEO Data Transporter

One of the biggest pains in changing WordPress themes is that you can lose all your SEO settings you so carefully cultivated. Thanks to SEO Data Transporter, this allows you to migrate all your SEO settings from plugins like Yoast SEO to a new theme with SEO built in, like Genesis. All the major platforms are supported and makes this plugin essential for any blogger.

19. Simple Lightbox

Ever been on a blog, clicked an image and it expands to full size? That’s a lightbox effect, and Simple Lightbox does exactly what the name of the plugin suggests – offers a pain-free way to have an elegant lightbox image gallery on your blog. (After a comment from Jon Loomer, I checked Simple Lightbox load times, and it was close to a second each time, which is a lot of load. Therefore, i deactivated the plugin and am removing its recommendation here).

20. Simple Social Icons

With the likes of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and others showing the benefits of using social networks to build your audience, making it easy to follow you is important. Simple Social Icons allows a clean and customizable selection of the top networks to display, so your readers can find you on your chosen networks.

21. Simple Trackback Validation

One of the ways spammers attack your blog (if they can’t bypass your comment filter) is by linking to your blog with their crappy content, which affects your standing in search engines if you’re linked with questionable content. Simple Trackback Validation checks the IP with the URL of the link and confirms it’s valid before approving.

22. SocialBox

Similar to Simple Social Icons, SocialBox is a smarter way to display your chosen networks, with follower and subscriber count on show too – always a great way to highlight your social currency when looking to attract advertisers to your blog (or even new subscribers – a high subscriber number usually equates to consistent quality).

23. Social Sharing Toolkit

You write great content – you want it shared, right? Social Sharing Toolkit does this and much more. As well as offering a host of the most popular sharing networks to allow your readers to share your content, it also has enhanced features like auto-linking Twitter names and hashtags, and offering more following options for your readers to connect with. A great social plugin.

24. Timthumb Vulnerability Scanner

Earlier last year, there was a major hack on WordPress sites using the code used to display thumbnails next to blog post excerpts. This caused huge headaches for a lot of bloggers, so the Timthumb Vulnerability Scanner plugin was released. This scans your database, highlight potential risks, and cleans these files for you. A must-have for any blogger that uses images.

25. Ultimate Maintenance Mode

If you want to make changes to your blog, or redesign it, but you don’t want to build offline and then transfer the data, Ultimate Maintenance Mode lets you create a maintenance message for your readers, and overlays it on top of a faded screenshot of your blog (or an image you upload). It’s one of the sleekest maintenance options out there, and I love it.

26. Viper’s Video Quicktags

If your blog is one that has a lot of videos on it, it can be a pain in the ass to grab the embed code, insert in your post, format and make sure it’s mobile-friendly too. Viper’s Video Quicktags does all this for you, and even inserts a little message with a direct link in your feed to say the post contains a video, in case it’s not displayed properly via email subscription.

27. W3 Total Cache

There’s nothing worse for a reader than visiting a blog and waiting for it to load. And waiting. And waiting. If your blog is taking too long to load, then you not only risk losing readers, but being punished by search engines too. W3 Total Cache is one of the most comprehensive options out there for scrunching your blog into less memory chunks, thus making it load faster.

Your Turn

And there you have it – my preferred plugins, some of which are always on, some of which are used when necessary.

There are other plugins that I haven’t mentioned here – WordPress SEO by Yoast, for instance, is great for getting you found on search engines. Since Genesis has a rock-solid SEO component built in, I don’t need to use any SEO plugins here.

Most of the above plugins will be great options for you to check out, some less so – for example, the Genesis plugins (with the exception of Simple Social Icons) are made for the Genesis framework only.

One thing to keep in mind – the more plugins you use, the more chance of impacting your site speed, so be careful with how many you use at any given time.

How about you – do you use any of these or, if not, which plugins are a must for your blog? Share away in the comments!

27 Highly Recommended WordPress PlugIns As Used on Here originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Sometimes, I feel as if I should stay away from vacations and personal downtime completely. Case in point – I’m on vacation this week and the thing I did first? Redesigned the blog.

But… there is method behind my madness. Here’s the lowdown, for anyone interested in the thought process behind a blog design.

I’ve written about the changing paths of this blog before. Whereas it was originally a straightforward social media-led blog, I’d like to think it’s grown into something more as I’ve grown as a blogger.

Whereas previously the content has (for the most part) been of the written kind, my future plans include more multimedia, videos, presentations, ebooks and more. This leads naturally to the redesign, and the switch from a traditional blog format to a more website-type feel.

Finding Your Feet and Walking Different Paths

I’ve looked at the blogs of people like Adam Singer, Jason Falls, Brian Clark and others, where the content has still been key, but there’s more to the experience for the visitor.

Sure, you can still read their blogs, but now there’s more to keep you interested and involved – digital downloads, resources and more. And it makes sense.

While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a “traditional” blog look and feel, the reading patterns and behaviours of web visitors is constantly evolving. And, from speaking with colleagues and watching the analytics of this blog, many bloggers are moving to a site framework versus a blog one.

There are several benefits of this approach:

• Information hub homepage, where you can inform the visitor what they can expect.
• Highlight your most important content, from blog posts to subscription details, books and more.
• Clean call-to-actions, including digital downloads, webinars, partner sites, etc.
• The visual appeal that a home page can offer, without cluttering your blog index.

These are just a few benefits. There are many more – the ones that matter to you are the ones that should matter on your home page.

Branding and Bigger Voices

Prior to my most recent redesign (yes, it was only a short couple of months ago – sorry!), I’d always had an image of myself in the header. With the design prior to this makeover, I removed that image and went solely for the name.

There are supporters for both arguments – respected bloggers Marcus Sheridan is a fan of the image approach, while Gini Dietrich is more of the name/company look and feel.

For me, there’s nothing wrong with either – a personal blogger may prefer an image to help him or her stand out, while a simple name or icon (without the blogger’s picture) can help extend the blog into something not uniquely attached to the blogger.

For example, both Gini and Jason that I mentioned earlier have regular guest bloggers, and their “name” approach means the blog is suited for that multi-author approach.

Gini’s even mentioned that the blog is bigger than her, and that’s why she doesn’t want it to be known as Gini’s blog. Again, for me, that makes perfect sense.

A blog is whatever the blogger wants it to be, while respecting the community around it that shapes it how they’d like it to be. It’s why I went for the name approach versus the image one.

For me, that’s going to see the blog evolve into what (hopefully) will be a repository for both content and downloads, to help you meet your goals, whether that be in social media, marketing or blogging (at least for starters).

Taking an image away from the header, as well as building on a website-type design, makes that goal easier.

We’re Always Evolving

It’s taken me a few iterations to get the result you’re looking at now (and if you’ve come straight to this post, hit the Home tab on the navigation to see the full design).

Some of my previous designs I was really happy with at the time, while others (in hindsight) were essentially a stop gap while looking for the design that I’d be really happy with.

While there will no doubt be more changes in the future, I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon. Having found the look and feel I’ve been after, it’ll probably just be minor tweaks here and there (a logo versus just the name, for example, though still no image!).

But though the look and feel may change, the goal remains the same – to open up the blog to you, and let you continue to shape it, in the posts from guests as well as the awesome thoughts and questions you continue to share and push with when you comment here.

This blog is as much yours as it is mine, perhaps more so.

Designs may come and go – but the same old me will always be around, waiting to hear your voice. Here’s to continued growth and evolution.

Of Blog Design Changes and Looking to the Future originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

One of the questions that many businesses ask is how they approach corporate social responsibility.

This doesn’t just mean donations to local (or national/international) charities; it also starts at home too, and that means with the people around you.

However, another way that companies can become more socially responsible is via cause marketing, which is becoming a lot more mainstream and visible.

Some figures from IAB show why cause marketing is becoming something business can’t ignore any longer:

• 71% of consumers are giving as much (or more) as they were before the economy dipped.
• 87% of consumers would switch brands to deal with companies associated with good causes.
• 50% of consumers would pay more from brands associated with good causes.

As you can see, cause marketing isn’t just good business ethics, it’s good business sense too. But you need to make sure that it’s for the right reason.

The Because of Cause Marketing

Consumers are smart. Everything needs to be “just so” if you want to win their business, and that increasingly means having more than just the cheapest prices or nicest-looking product.

If you’re looking to increase your awareness to consumers via cause marketing, there needs to be a genuine “because” behind the cause.

• Is the cause relevant to you and your brand? No-one likes bandwagon jumpers, especially when it comes to charities and good causes. Picking a charity that doesn’t align with your company ethic could be seen as a sign you’re just using cause marketing for profit dollars.

• Are you a hopper or a stayer? Any worthy cause will tell you that while short-term fixes help, long-term change is where the real needs lie. Invest in your cause marketing for the long-term; grow a relationship with the cause – build and support.

• Are you engaging your employees? A solid social responsibility plan should be including your employees to start with. Make sure they’re fully engaged with your cause marketing efforts; involve at every step and look for feedback on how to improve constantly.

• Why this particular cause? Yes, it’s relevant to your business, but why your chosen one over many others like it? Be clear why you’re supporting; be clear where the dollars are going; be clear what change can be made; and be clear why the need to help now.

Local or (Inter)National

The main question many businesses ask themselves is whether they should be supporting local or national/international causes. Ideally, you’d be able to support both initiatives, which would benefit everyone. But we know ideally doesn’t always cut it.

A lot can come down to your bandwidth.

• Do you have the resources to properly support a national/international campaign?
• Is your customer/client base local or national/international?
• Are there local projects that you can make a big difference to with your support?
• Is your local community one that can work with a cause marketing mindset?

The answers to these questions, and more like them, can help you decide whether you invest locally or further afield. But again, make sure it’s for the right reasons and not simply to make you look good for a while.

Marketing is one of the most important aspects of any business. Cause marketing is joining the fray as an equally important part of your ongoing plans, especially in the eyes of your customers.

How’s your business stacking up?

image: Portrait Artist – Enzie Shahmiri

The Because of Cause Marketing originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

When we envisioned our social media dashboard JugnooMe, our key tenet was to make the social web simple, accessible and monetizable for everyone.

This means a solo entrepreneur; a full-on corporation; an agency looking after clients; a non-profit; realtors, franchisors and much, much more. But goals are one thing; making it happen are another.

One of the ways we’re making it happen, even during our beta stage, is by having a complementary suite of tools that dovetail into each other and offer a fully integrated solution because of it.

By doing this, it means you, the user, can create fully-fledged social media campaigns even while our products are still being fleshed out and added to.

To give you an idea of how you could use JugnooMe for your social media needs/campaign, here’s a simple overview of how you could use the tools to start, track and measure your campaign.

Step 1: Gather the Intelligence

Okay, so you’ve been told you need to get on social media because that’s where all your customers are. But are they? There are 7 billion people in the world. Let’s say half of them are kids – that leaves 3 billion.

Even the mighty Facebook has less than a billion users. So, by definition, at least 2/3 of your customers may very well not be on social media. Your job is to find out if they are, and that’s where our Social Search option comes in.

This feature allows you to enter keywords around the topics your potential customers would be talking about around your brand or the services you offer.

You can then filter these into Positive, Neutral and Negative, which is perfect if you want to make a soft sell around your product (Positive sentiment and non-invasive tweet about the Twitter conversation and topic) or protect your brand (Negative and your instant reply with a solution or correction to erroneous statements).

What Social Search also allows you to do is see if people are talking about your industry at all, and where about, which will then allow you to target your next steps.

Step 2: Creating the Campaign

Let’s say Social search shows you that there’s a desperate need for an answer to a question that hundreds of people are asking, but no-one seems to be responding too.

It could be a product and its reliability, or an upcoming area in the real estate market and what that means to potential buyers.

While you could simply reply via Twitter to the hundreds of individuals, it’d be a lot more effective (and profitable) to run something like a premium webinar, and then smartly promote into the search terms and conversations from your original results.

Now, while we can’t help you with the webinar creation, we can help you get the word out and measure. For instance, once you have the webinar booked, you could use our SVM (social video marketing) tool to create a short promotional video with snippets of eye-catching copy, images and sound.

Once you’ve uploaded the video (either to Jugnoo Media or YouTube – more platforms will be supported soon), you can then start promoting your video and webinar across your chosen social networks, using our global J-Post option.

This currently allows you to post updates to Twitter, Facebook (profiles and Pages) and LinkedIn.

You can use this feature with as many accounts as you wish – so, if you’re a franchisor, for example, and you distribute offers across 100 franchisees, you could essentially have several hundred messages being created in one click to cover multiple locales and demographics.

To add to the buzz around your webinar, you could also create a special offer using our Facebook Coupon app, where you can promote a time-sensitive offer to raise sales interest in your webinar.

Now you have a fully integrated promotion across social media – YouTube video, social network syndication and a Facebook coupon, allowing you to target your webinar audience on the platform they prefer.

But social media promotion is just one part – so you need to make sure you’re measuring your webinar’s sign-up rate and buzz, so you can make amends to your campaign if and where needed.

Step 3: Measuring the Campaign

To know if you’re being successful or not, you need to get on the Analytics train. These will help you gauge where your biggest visitors are coming from; what platform or message is being most successful; where you need to focus more on, and much more.

To do this effectively, set up a vanity URL for each platform you’re promoting your webinar on, and make sure you have the sign-up page for the webinar itself on your own website.

Then, use our Analytics solution to set up your campaign(s).

Your campaign can be made up of certain goals – X amount of traffic from the various networks you promote on, or how many people used the Facebook coupon discount code, etc.

By measuring the goals, you can see where you’re not getting as much traction as elsewhere, and decide whether or not you need to remain promoting there, use another platform, or just stop your promotion there full stop.

As well as the web analytics, you can use the Social Search option again to see how your campaign is being received on the various social networks.

The benefit of adding your own webinar terms to the Social Search engine is you can reply to any questions as they are asked (even if not directed at you), gauge how positively or negatively your promotion is viewed (are you too hard-sell, and if so, what can you do to make the promotion more effective), etc.

You can also see who’s talking about you the most, and reward them with discounts or special codes for their own blog readers or followers. it’s a great way to build brand advocates around your webinar and brand, and that will last much longer than the webinar itself.

Additionally, when the webinar is running, you can add a Search stream to your Twitter dashboard, and use the feedback from it to tailor your approach during that webinar and for future ones.

Step 4: Rinse and Repeat

And there you have it – how to research, create, promote and measure a social media campaign pretty much all within the JugnooMe dashboard.

You can obviously take it as in-depth or as simple as you wish, using whatever features you feel would be best-suited to your own campaign(s).

Additionally, this type of integrated campaign can be created with the current beta toolset – we have a lot of cool new features coming in the next couple of releases between now and August, to really give you the complete package for your own social media campaigns and needs.

Interested in how we can help you? Hop on over and try JugnooMe out for yourself – it’s free while in beta, and we’d love to see how you use it and how we can help you meet your social media goals!

This post originally appeared on the Jugnoo blog – subscribe today to get the latest updates, news and trends in all things social media, mobile and digital!

Create and Measure a Social Media Campaign with the @JugnooMe Dashboard originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Thank 10 followers on each social network you’re on for being there with you.

Cull the networks you’re told you should be on to only the ones you need to be on.

Praise a work colleague or team you lead for the awesome work they’re doing.

Leave that last report at the office until the next day and spend time with those that really matter.

Buy a coffee a day for a homeless person.

Speak up for someone you know won’t speak up for themselves but deserve to be heard.

Call someone up you’ve let slip off your radar and make them feel remembered.

Instead of talking about how we’d like to change the world, let’s start by changing us first.

Make It Your Mission To… originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Often, we change things based on what we see in front of us, or based on perceptions of what we feel is in front of us.

It may be that our sales channels are bringing in less than 12 months ago; so we change the sales team or manager.

Or, our customers are leaving in numbers that are scary; so we change the customer service team or manager.

The problem is, often what we see in front of us is a very small part of what’s happening behind the visual.

Our sales team may be bringing in the same sales, if not more, but economic fluctuations and inflation are resulting in lower numbers. Or customers aren’t leaving; they’re moving to a different part of the product line, but still with the company.

Just because we see something doesn’t mean we see everything. Take Nintendo, for example.

The Nintendo Guide to Sight

Five years ago, Nintendo were struggling. Where they had once (arguably) been the most dominant force in video games on the planet, they were now drifting in third place behind Sony and Microsoft, with their Playstation and Xbox platforms respectively.

The Nintendo 64 had failed to live up to the success of Nintendo’s previous console, the monster success that was the Super NES.

While no-one could doubt the gameply genius of titles like Super Mario 64 and Goldeneye, the new generation of gamers were all about the graphics – something Sony and Microsoft had in abundance. Something Nintendo’s 64-bit system couldn’t muster.

Now, many companies might walk away at that point – Sega certainly did, when they pulled out of the video game console market in 2001 and became just a game developer instead, due to the huge success of Sony’s original PlayStation taking a massive amount of market share away from Sega.

But Nintendo were built of stronger stuff, and had eyes that saw more than just decreased market share and the possibility of failure. And it was to be Nintendo’s competitors’ strengths (ultra-realism through graphics and online play) that would become Nintendo’s key weapon in their comeback.

Real or Real Good

Due to the increasingly photo-realistic graphics that the likes of Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 could provide, parents became concerned about the effect this might have on their younger kids.

The governing body of video games was also becoming concerned with the amount of negative press these new games were getting. Kids were becoming lazy, since they could play online with their friends, and this was contributing to a new generation of obese children, which was obviously a health issue and one that was drawing more questions than the violent and realistic nature of some games.

While Microsoft and Sony defended their industry and products – after all, who wants to lose a slice of the billions being generated in revenue? – Nintendo saw an opportunity for something different.

Instead of defending the lazy gamer idea, they embraced it head-on.

In a stroke of genius, Nintendo’s fortunes were about to take a massive turn for the better. The result of their vision? The Nintendo Wii, and Wii Fit.

They stayed away from super realistic graphics, and kept the family-friendly look Nintendo has always been known for. They made games for everyone; not just the hardcore gamer. They made it cheap; $250 instead of $400. And they made it part of you.

Instead of being tethered by a joystick, the Wii controller essentially made you the controller. Using a sensor that scanned you and fed your details into the Wii, you could now move your arms, and your character’s arms would move. You could bowl like you would in the bowling alley, and your character would.

By making games that were sensor-based, Nintendo brought the whole family together and off the sofa. Games like Wii Sports and Wii Fit were deliberate in their intent – get the gamer active while having fun.

The result? This countered concerns of parents and press at the same time, and made the Wii a huge success.

Vision is a Two Way Thing

Nintendo could have blamed sales and numbers on their competitors. They could have said they were suffering because they were being tarred by the same “too realistic” brush that Microsoft and Sony were. They could have blamed their engineers for not having more realistic graphics.

But instead, they took a deeper down look and saw more than the easy answers that were in front of them. They knew better than to accept what we first think, and to see if there’s another way.

Because of that, they saw what others could not see, and changed video game history in the process.

Sometimes we make changes based on what we see. But sometimes we’re not actually seeing anything at all, except what we want, or are told, to see. And that benefits no-one.

Want to succeed? Look deeper – because you cannot change what you do not see.

image: Green Idea Factory

Vision Is a Two Way Thing originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.