Wieneke’s first rule of sales: “in order to sell the shoe, show the shoe”. Nowhere is this more true than in car sales.

But in this ad, Mercedes substitutes some “product lust” for, well…lust. And my question is – if this ad were in heavy rotation would have on demand.

Same, neutral or negative?

How much of the digital brands that you create are visual?

Since digital experiences are mostly screen-based, the answer is that almost all our work is visual.

Before anyone cares about our words, clients experience our brand, usually visually. Sure, our Kantian monkey minds boil everything down to words, but they come from experiences. In fact, studies of cognition teach us words are how we remember experiences.

So, while this lovely viral video sets out to make the case for the power of words in marketing, I think power of its story comes from just about everything but words.

So take quick look. Do you agree with their copy “that marketing is the power of words” or if you agree with their example, “that marketing is an accumulation of experience“?

Earlier this month the Boston Phoenix ran a transfixing analysis of the Boston Police’s use of online and cell phone data in their hunt for Craigslist Killer, Philip Markoff.

If you haven’t seen the article, take a look. The Boston Police turned over their investigation files which reporters both analyzed and released. You can view seemingly endless crime scene photos and listen in on recordings of the interrogation. But perhaps most interesting, BPD released the its subpoena and Facebook’s response on what they knew about the suspect.

Facebook is reserved about their process for responding to subpoenas. So, the BPD sharing a copy of their request and the resulting data dump they received from Facebook was an eye-opener. Facebook’s response included an list of Philip Markoff’s Facebook friends, photos, status updates and IP addresses showing how he accessed the system. The Phoenix self-censored friend names before releasing the files. (See it all below.)

Several legal questions immediately surface:

1. Does Facebook favor the prosecution?
   Facebook honors government subpoenas, but it does not honor defense or civil subpoena requests. The Phoenix’s reporting shows the depth of information the state can gather against a suspect, but a defendant couldn’t discover similar information about others to use in their defense. If a third party admitted to a crime on Facebook, an accused wouldn’t have a way of legally discovering this, unless it was a public post. Further, legal ethics block lawyers from “friending” others to gain access to information for legal proceedings. Even if not intentional, this is a structural inequity in digital discovery.
2. What good are European privacy regulations?
   If US law enforcement and press can access and publish personal data outside of EU jurisdiction, then these laws mean quite little.  Under the PATRIOT act law enforcement can access European accounts from Facebook, Google, Hotmail or Twitter – none of which are provided protected status in the US.
3. What privacy rights do innocent friends of the guilty retain?
   If one of Markoff’s friends shared an innocent secret with him, it would have ended up on the record, both with the police and the press too. This is a the very least a reminder to be careful of who you friend, and at most a wake-up call that use of social network may deserve privacy protection because of its permanence, volume, and potential for unintended collateral damage.

The Social Networking Online Protection Act, authored by Eliot Engel of New York, and sponsored by Jan Schakowsky of Illinois would ban the practice of requiring job applicants, employees or students to provide their social networking information. Earlier this month Maryland passed a similar bill.

Perhaps I”m being charitable, but I’ve always assumed that employer Facebook snooping was likely based on one of two incorrect assumptions:

1. That knowledge is power.
   If government can be Big Brother – why not job creators too?
2. That having log on credentials would prevent publicly embarrassing incidents.

Employer Spying is More Liability than Asset
Having log in access to the personal chats, voice communications, and posts of employees exposes employers to an endless amount of personal and potentially privileged information. Suddenly firms are privy to a variety of personal relationships, preferences and beliefs which are protected under employment law. An important ring of defense against charges of discrimination “we didn’t know and don’t care” is immediately removed by this action. It such cases, knowledge is vulnerability.

Second, I promise you, having log on credentials creates a series of troublesome exposures for organizations.

1. Abuse / Breach of Trust: imagine the ick-factor of bosses or university staff suddenly showing intimate knowledge of their employees or students lives. Compound that with obsessive interest, stalking, and the potential for crime based on the intimate knowledge of personal communications.

    

2. Failure to Act:  There is a substantial risk of “failure to act” charges when bad acts are perpetrated by those being monitored. There will at least be questions of “who knew what when”. Did monitors knowing permit illegal or unethical act simply because they were not directly harmed by them. Did they have a duty to know or take action?

Spying and the the Craigslist Killer
Imagine if Boston University Medical School had decided to monitor all communications on its network, and Craigslist killer Philip Markoff had used their network to book appointments with his victims. Even if he took steps to hide his intent, would there be liability?

The mother of a woman he killed, Julia Brisman, has sued Marriott for failing to prevent prostitution within its walls, which her daughter had taken steps to conceal. This case relies on Marriott’s responsibility to know if its guests are breaking laws and then to take action.

Once you monitor, there is an increased burden and responsibility for awareness. Rather than being power, knowledge can create liability.

Create policies that enable intrusion at your own risk. In my estimation, that risk is material.

As for Job Creators

During times of economic stress, the influence of employers may seem boundless. They are hailed as “job creators” – though I’d suggest the influence of customers, educated staff and inventors, and fair civil government should be equally as lionized.Yes, really, equally. Capital is good, but oligarchy isn’t.

There’s something deep in the American psyche which prefers the story of the hero, over that of a rational and cooperatively focused society. The Scandinavian model is less heroic, but there’s a strong case for it and a culture of innovation that extends from Linus Torvalds, to Nokia, to Novo Nordisk. Its a contrast to the American model that might be called “Triple or Nothing“.

So, to bring this to a point. There is a 4th Amendment which protects our bodies, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable search by the government.  Though localized to Facebook and other social media, perhaps social media protection laws are a response to the excesses of private institutions which persons should have a more enforceable protection of privacy from.

(This post is a general commentary on news and digital marketing – it should not be considered legal advice or applied to specific circumstance.)

The last 24 hours has been awesome ball soup cool. 

It all started with the launch of Columbia sportswear’s very cool Portable Activity Log app. This free app builds on Columbia’s customers’ passion for adventure, by giving them and everyone else who joins in a free tool to collect and share news of your adventures.

I think their corporate home page’s announcement may be the best thing I’ve seen on a computer screen. Columbia’s devoted the bulk of their home page to promoting its launch – and again, the word awesome comes to mind. Take a look.

Today Engadget described it as lapping Google’s related offering…that’s a good day!

Google’s own adventure tracking app just got majorly one-upped by a company that also happens to make heated jackets…It’s free to download, and aside from monitoring your hikes and treks via GPS, it also syncs photos, videos, and trail information to a web journal automatically, complete with pinpoint geotagging information on each piece of media…

It’ll keep track of elevation changes, current speed and distance traveled, and it makes sharing said trips to social networks — quite the lesson in simplicity.

Get it for yourself free –  The app is a cross between Map My Run, Four Square, and your trusty GPS. Give it a spin.

• Download Columbia’s GPS Pal from the App Store.
• Download Columbia’s GPS Pal from Google Play.

If you read this blog, you know how highly I think of ISITE’s customer experience and mobile teams – and Gene Ehrbar who I’ve co-taught mobile marketing bootcamp with. Its great working on strategy with a team that challenges you to go big, and to see this kind of delivery on brands from consumer, to B2B, to .EDUs.

As a one-time trek guide and digital native, it doesn’t get better than this. Please send any feedback you like this way — and if you dig it write a review and tell friends.

Remember – you can’t luck out if you’re not there….and if you do luck out, get a few photos or videos of the good times, plant some GPS markers, and tell the story in style.

I’ve been seeing a lot written about “the social media bubble” in places like the NY Times, NPR, and Atlantic Monthly. A theme you’ll find across their coverage is that the sale of Instagram is a mark of the social media end times.

I’m the first person to point out the folly of assigning universal values to followers and friends. Really, doesn’t it matter just who those friends are, and what your plans are for them? Besides, there are bigger forces, such as the end of the PC era that will do more to shift customer experience and business models than social media. So, what other signs of social media’s value might we find?

This week the Huffington Post became the first blog to ever win a Pulitzer Prize.

The prize for HuffPo’s David Wood’s is stunning 10-part series “Beyond the Battlefield,” which describes the lives of severely injured Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans. The blog invested in a long term effort, allowing Wood to interview veterans over an eight month period. The reporting is paired with striking photo journalism. Take a look. (above)

Matt Wuerker, Politico’s editorial cartoonist and illustrator also won a Pultizer for “his consistently fresh, funny cartoons, especially memorable for lampooning the partisan conflict that engulfed Washington”. You can see a carousel of his work here. Though Politico is printed for distribution in DC, most people know it as a blog.

Okay, both publications and the Pulitzer committee may all be in the bubble. But that’s not the point. There’s real revenue being racked-up, and value being established. Sure there’s uncertainty, but that’s not a bubble, its just good old risk. (if you want a real bubble, find a place where government financing is falsely buoying prices: college tuition and corn seem more bubbelicious to me than Pinterest with its 22 employees.

Bubble or Sale?
Not long ago Ad Age summed up this whole social media and digital media shift: “Marketers: Digital offers us more for less“. We’re in a tight economy, many big firms are cutting advertising to protect margins. They’re moving part of it to digital, and depending on its greater efficiency to make up for over all ad cuts. Cuts in one area of marketing are fueling the development of new owned and earned media channels. When Facebook ads are selling at $1 CPM, the bubble feels far from full; it feels like a sale. Knowing that Facebook is steaming toward a possible $100B IPO, raises the negotiating floor for any strategic purchase it makes. America is leading in digital marketing, and the investment world is fueling a ton of innovation in this “bubble”. (There are tons of examples: ExactTarget’s IPO, Schoolology – a Blackboard competitor in the .edu space, and Path come to mind.)

Sure, there is an irrational exuberance among those who thoughtlessly pursue the endless string of bright shiny objects in digital marketing. Darwin punishes stupid change as surely as those who fail to innovate. But in this environment, you’re either in motion or out of the game. More than ever, change isn’t optional, bubble or not.

My friend Jonathan Wells at The Christian Science Monitor is fond of noting that “every day is a new adventure.” He uses the phrase in humor and gratitude.

One of my adventures for 2012 has been starting a graduate course in digital marketing at Northeastern’s program in digital media. The journey started back in March at the Usability Professionals annual big meeting in Boston. In the months that followed, I started to get to know Northeastern as a thesis adviser. This let me meet people at the end of the digital media program, and think about the kinds of marketing frameworks that would complement their hands-on skills in site development and video.

Its Always the People
First, you should know the students in the program are A-mazing. All are pursuing graduate degrees as part of a career changes or upgrades. Northeastern has a tradition of bringing diverse groups together,  which shows in my notably global group, with half the class hailing from international locations: Poland, Venezuela, Thailand, China, Moldova.

The second thing to know is that they’re smart. They have great takes on how digital is changing the industries they’ve worked in and how it touches their lives. Some walked in able to rattle-off Porters five forces and Kotler’s Ps. So now the real test begins.

Flip the Class
The team at Northeastern has challenged me to flip the class by taking much of the information transfer-part of the class to on-demand video, so our in-person time can focus on answering questions, discussion, and welcoming experts.

This is helping me turn a corner. For years I’ve written blog posts on the growing importance of video to marketers, all along recognizing the hypocrisy of writing about video. This exercise has encouraged me to move from knowing that video is important to making more of it myself.

Here’s the line up of the first week’s online teaching.

Yep, we’re not going light on the information transfer. We’re just taking a lot of it out of class so we can use in-person time better.

We’ll dig in to demand generation, SEO, video, social, mobile, brand management, digital advertising, and optimization…but we’re starting out with a focus on how marketing changes business. I’m hoping to expand the view of marketing from “the make it pretty” department that exists in some firms to a broader view about marketing as the positioner of the total firm to its markets. (All four of Kotler’s Ps, not just promotion.)

At the moment I’m working with a great set of clients who are doing some groundbreaking work in mobile and making data-driven experiences part of their brand strategy. This gives me extra ideas to bring to the exchange that is interactive learning, and a great sounding board to test out concepts during outside time with clients. It also means things will be extra busy, and extra interesting for a few months. What could be better?

Every day is a new adventure; I hope you enjoy yours in good company.

It may take time, but no matter how good or bad things are, progress is possible.

Optimists believe this is the best of all worlds; pessimists fear it is.

So find your dissatisfaction and work with it. Put a lemon to its best use.

End of fortune cookie. Dave

I’m pleased to announce this free webinar on one of the absolute hottest topics in digital marketing, future proofing our work as we move to a post PC environment.

Consumers today already expect fully responsive experiences across a huge number of devices and platforms. However, designing individually for the array smart phone operating systems, tablets, game consoles, and now even car dashboards, is a path to stranded effort and investment. The good news is that there is a solution to this.

Smart companies are finding they can use an approach called Responsive Design to sense visitor’s device parameters and render a digital experience optimized for them.

When: Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 1pm – 2pm Eastern
Where: on your computer
How: Register for Future Friendly Mobile Development here.
Who: My colleague and friend, Gene Ehrbar, is the Director of Mobile Solutions at ISITE Design. 

If you’re thinking about how to develop great mobile solutions that can adapt to the future, then this hour should be inked in to your schedule. Having taught Mobile Marketing Boot Camp with Gene, I know insightful, expert, and generous he is. This will be good.

Tell him Dave sent you. ;>

Today I’m at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School speaking at the Bridging the Digital Gap confrere, where I’ll be sharing thoughts on building digital careers.

You can get the flavor of what we’re talking about. I’ll be suggesting that many of the same things that make for good digital marketing also foster successful digital careers.

I hope you’ll take a look at the slide deck — and also if you’re around, please mark your calendar for next Wednesday to join my friend and ISITE Design colleague Gene Ehrbar a free webinar on Responsive Deisgn. This is how to make future friendly websites that adapt to well to the demands of mobile technology, and its a hot topic among designers, strategists, and those of us who love mobile.

Thanks to everyone who made today happen, and to everyone who turned out before a big holiday weekend.

Bridging the Digital Gap by Dave Wieneke

A Conference on Digital Careers and Business Opportunity at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School. April 6, 2012.

Storified by Dave Wieneke · Sat, Apr 07 2012 12:25:35

@HeyNitro Yeah! @usefularts is a great speaker. He’s also been on a panel with Dave. ^TVsnap