Six Pixels of Separation - Marketing and Communications Insights - By Mitch Joel at Twist Image

Endless Aisles

Mitch Joel — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:40:08 PST

What has your shopping experiences been like lately?

I was recently in New York City giving a presentation at the National Retail Federation's Big Show 2012 event. I was part of the Shop.org First Look series and talked about the massive changes that retail will face as technology, Social Media and mobile collides at the retail level. We have more and more consumers who are connected with highly powerful smartphones at the store level and they're doing a lot more than just price comparison shopping. When you think of the potential and the opportunity to bring those different worlds together, the possibilities become endless (so long as you're not being a creepy brand).

Virtual shopping in a physical store.

During my time in New York City, I had the opportunity to drop into the Uniqlo store on 5th and 53rd. It truly is a sight to see if you're into retail, commerce, fashion and a unique in-store experience. I found two styles of jeans that I really liked, so I bought two pairs. The truth is that I would have bought a couple more, but they were out of my size.

What if?

What if there was a simple touchscreen that allowed me to buy those jeans right then and there? They could be sent to my home or hotel (depending on availability) or it could even let me know when I could come back to the store and pick them up. Seems simple enough in this day and age of e-commerce, doesn't it? Pushing that idea further, I should be able to do that exact same kind of transaction from my smartphone, right?

Hold your horses.

I realize that these types of simple integrations are few and far between when it comes to retailers (and other businesses), but the expectation as a consumer is pretty straight-forward - I can order online, so why can't I order online while I'm in the store? Attribution is one of those hotly debated topics when it comes to the world of retail meets digital and these types of converged interactions (doing e-commerce from the physical store). Think about how that type of transaction may help retailers better understand both consumers and the analytics behind who in the corporate food chain gets awarded the "sale".

It's much bigger than that.

Hadley Malcolm over at USA Today interviewed me about some of the future-trending retail issues for her article, Touch-screens create online shopping experiences at stores. The story, which was picked up by Reveries (titled, Endless Aisles - and yes, I liked Tim Manners' title so much that I stole it for this Blog post), prompted me to think differently about the value of digital signage and touchscreens at the retail level. While all of that has many advantages - from marketing to customization and beyond - the e-commerce integration is going to be a critical component. Not only will retailers have less people like me walking out of the store when I would have spend seventy-five percent more (had the retailer simply had the inventory), but this type of digital commerce will also reshape the entire inventory landscape. Every store is limited by their footprint and historical sales to drive inventory control. No more. If you think about this integration of e-commerce at the retail level (be it on a smartphone or a touchscreen installation), retailers may discover that a store in Peoria sells as much inventory on certain products (or maybe more) than a flagship store in Times Square.

Zero sum games.

Pundits think that e-commerce kills the retail experience. People still like to go out, wander the malls, touch and see what's new and exciting. It's not a zero sum game. The smarter retailers are going to wake-up and realize that e-commerce will no longer be a vertical within their retail experience... it's going to quickly become horizontal. The digitization and ability for consumers to hit the retail level, but have access to the full inventory (and maybe even more products... some of which can even be virtual goods) is going to be the true shopping experience of the soon-to-be-future for retail.

How do you see the future of retail?

Tags: attribution big show 2012 commerce comparison shopping consumer digital commerce digital signage e commerce ecommerce fashion hadley malcolm inventory control marketing mobile national retail federation online shopping order online retail reveries shop org shopping shopping experience smartphone social media technology tim manners touchscreen transaction uniqlo usa today virtual goods virtual shopping web analytics

The Death Of The Unconference

Mitch Joel — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 08:23:06 PST

Does anyone remember the unconference?

There was hope for collaboration and self-organizing groups, but it seems to have gone the way of the corporate spin machine. I was a massive proponent of the unconference movement (I still am!), but that word has been used so poorly by so many groups that it seems to have all but disappeared. In short: calling your conference an "unconference" just to sound young, hip and with it, actually makes you sound old, out-of-touch and stupid. This past month, I've seen a handful of events that are billing themselves as unconferences when, in reality, they're just very shabby and cheap events.

Your conference is not an unconference if...

There is a pre-set agenda. The whole point of an unconference is that group comes together to create the agenda/slate together.
The organizers decide on the agenda. Organizers can help organize the day in terms of logistics (when there are sessions and breaks), but should not be setting the agenda in terms of the content.
The organizers are doing everything. The organizers aren't there to make the event good for everyone else. The event is actually being "run" by everyone. Everyone participates. Unconferences are not about bystanders or attendees. The organizers are there simply to ensure that a venue is secure and that everyone knows where they are going. I'd even argue that this task can be done by the participants as well.
You're charging for it. This will be a contentious issue, but the best unconferences I have been to, have been the ones where everyone took both individual and group responsibility for the event. If the venue requires a fee, everyone chips in equally to pay for it. If you're hungry and want to eat, either bring food or go out and buy some. The true spirit of the unconference movement is that this is NOT a traditional conference. Bring your own nametag, notebook, snacks and drinks. If this is a self-organizing event why should any one individual have a financial risk attached to it? Think about getting sponsors instead of charging for it (if you really have to).
You're attending but not speaking. If you're showing up to consume and not contribute, stay home. Many people don't like to speak in public, that's fine. No one is asking you to give a keynote address. An unconference is a place where like-minded people come to share and challenge one another. Try sitting in circles and think about the event as a live interactive environment, instead of just sitting there hoping the next speaker can entertain you.
You don't enact the law of two-feet. If you're not learning, get up, use your own two feet and go somewhere you can learn. Hallway conversations are great for this. If your unconference isn't littered with spaces for sudden collisions of conversation, it isn't much of an unconference.

Unconference are an amazing opportunity.

You would think that this Blog post should have been written and published five years ago. You would think that unconference are so passé. You would be wrong. After attending close to seventy events each and every year, the handful that stick out in my mind are the more intimate unconferences that I have taken an active part in. An unconference creates an egalitarian moment in time where people from all walks of life (and all levels within an organization) can simply share, learn, communicate and grow. To run a conference and call it an unconference is a disservice to the unconference movement. Many people don't understand this because an unconference looks and acts nothing like their traditional definition of a conference (hence the name of it ;). It saddens me to see how many people start with the right spirit of an unconference but quickly get stuck in all of the trappings of what they think will create a great event (and this - unfortunately - looks a lot like a traditional conference).

If you've never taken part in an unconference, I would encourage you to look into it... or better yet... start your own.

Tags: blog post collaboration conference corporate spin event event organizer keynote address learning self organizing event speaking the law of two feet traditional conference unconference

How To Get Started As A Business Leader

Mitch Joel — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:04:19 PST

Your life and your success is not obvious. It's not a given. It's not a direct path.

I often say that the best careers in marketing (specifically the ones that have a digital/new media slant) are very squiggly. They involve everything from stumbling through university and very crappy jobs to bad choices and decisions that were driven by financial debt instead of personal opportunity. Every year, I do my best to attend the TED conference. A couple of years ago, the name Chris Sacca was bandied around as someone who everyone wanted to not only meet, but hang out with. He was (and still is) a venture capitalist with a background at Google (in the early days) and an early investor in companies like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Kickstarter and others (you can see what he's about right here: Lowercase Capital). On one of the nights at TED, we both happened to be on the same shuttle bus (I was shy and didn't say anything). Later that evening we both sat next to one another at a late night jam-session that was being hosted by one of the hotels (I still didn't say anything). I didn't want to look like a fanboy (I was just impressed with everything that he had done at such a young age). People were constantly swarming him. It felt like there was an air desperation in hopes that some of his magic pixie dust might sprinkle over them. It turns out that - shock of all shocks - Chris is a lot like you and I. He's a normal guy that is just following his dream by trying to help others. He was actually two million dollars in debt not that along ago, but was able to turn his life around. He's endured crappy jobs growing up, and as a venture capitalist is first to admit that he's wrong much more frequently than right. His life philosophy and how he thinks about opportunity should be turned into a book. You'll just want to be a friend's of Chris. If you don't want to be his friend, you will be refreshed by his perspective on business.

It's about your foundation.

Kevin Rose (Digg, Milk, Revision3, etc...) hosts an incredible video podcast called, Foundation, where he has in-depth conversations with, "influential founders, entrepreneurs, and business leaders in the tech community," according to the website. With all of my heavy consumption and infovore mentality, I had not heard about this show until today and somehow stumbled upon this incredible hour-long conversation that Rose did with Chris Sacca from July 2011. I could not stop watching it. Not only is it a fascinating look at Silicon Valley and how relationships are built, it's an amazing education for everyone in marketing to learn from. They talk about the value of networking and relationships, what success looks like, how business models are created and much, much more (including how Sacca thinks Twitter will not only make money and become a big business, but what this means to marketing today... and moving forward).

Stop what you're doing and immerse yourself in this world...

Tags: business leader business model chris sacca digg digital marketing entrepreneur facebook foundation podcast founder google infovore instagram kevin rose kickstarter lowercase capital marketing marketing career milk networking new media philosophy relationships revision3 silicon valley success tech community ted conference twitter venture capital video podcast

Digital Tumbleweeds And Virtual Crickets

Mitch Joel — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 06:51:26 PST

If you publish online get ready for a lesson in humility.

Brands quit publishing content for the exact same reason that many individuals stop publishing content: the brutal reality that nobody cares. As someone who creates and publishes a lot of content online (roughly six Blog posts and one audio Podcast every week), there is both a certain humility and instant humiliation that comes along with the process.

The cream rises to the top.

Even in a world where two hundred billion videos get viewed every month, the cream still does rise to the top (as the saying goes). It's just that we seem to have a lot more cream and it's fallen into many different niches. With that cream comes a lot of stuff that falls to the bottom. And, that bottom-feeding content, is the vast majority - especially when it comes to content that is related to business - of what populates corporately operated content marketing platforms . Not everyone gets the video viral success of Will It Blend? and few will get the same impact from their corporate Blogs as Dell has had. The other challenge is in maintaining this attention and consistently delivering content that rises to the top.

Content creation can be a humiliating process.

I've spent many evenings tapping away at the keyboard, as the ideas flowed in a fast and furious pace. I've hit the "publish" button thinking to myself, "this could well be my best Blog post to date," only to find out a short while later that nobody cared. The post wasn't picked up, tweeted about on Twitter, shared, liked on Facebook and only generated a few (if any) comments.

What did I get? Digital tumbleweeds or virtual crickets.

I don't care what Simon & Garfunkel tell you, the sound of silence is not pretty a pretty sound at all. In the pre-Social Media world, we used to publish our thoughts, but before that stage we had a semblance of validation. The publishers, editors and fellow content creators gave that validation to us, by agreeing to publish our work in the first place. Even when the work may have been sub-par, sometimes the brand that published the content helped carry it. I'd even argue that the public's reaction to that content mattered significantly less than the fact that it was published. The validation of content came from it being published more than it's widely accepted appeal to the masses. Now - in a world where the half-life of a Blog post can be less than twelve hours - you can tell if your work resonates... or if it's digital tumbleweeds.

How to win friends and influence people.

Countless Blog posts and seminars have been produced on how to get your content to rise up and be heard. While there are certain "tricks" that can be pulled off (a catchy headline, a cute picture of a puppy, a how-to-list, something that will make people laugh, cry, think... or all of the above), there is still a "secret sauce" that makes some content work. Having conducted over three hundred interviews with industry leaders, one common thread of thought is pervasive: the majority of content creators are just as surprised as anyone else is when one piece of content works while another is met with digital tumbleweeds. They often feel like their best work is not met with the attention they anticipated and that the content they felt was filler is the stuff that their community ran with.

The real-time analytics is us.

The true humility and humiliation of Social Media is not what the web analytics tell us... it's what the audience does (or doesn't do) with the content. You can buy audience, links and clicks, but you can't buy people who care and want to share whatever it is that you are doing. Ultimately, the humiliation should not stop us... it should drive us. Everyday is a new opportunity to connect and engage, so the brands that give up, don't try or tinker with their content are completely missing the point. Some stuff will rise to the top while other stuff will be met with digital tumbleweeds. It's the nature of the beast. The trick is in being able to identify that - over the long-haul (and yes, it takes a significant amount of time to garner any semblance of traction) - you need to look at the entire body of work as a benchmark for if your content resonates. It's also wise to use those daily moments of humiliation from digital tumbleweeds as a compass for what resonates... and what doesn't.

How do you deal with the digital tumbleweeds and virtual crickets?

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

The Huffington Post - Social Media and the Humiliation Effect.

Tags: analytics blog brand business business book business column content content creator content delivery content marketing corporate blog dell digital marketing agency digital tumbleweed editor facebook how to win friends and influence people media hacker online publishing online video podcast publisher publishing simon and garfunkle social media the huffington post twitter viral video virtual cricket web analytics will it blend

Madison Avenue And Mountain View Collide For The Future Of Marketing

Mitch Joel — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 10:41:47 PST

Episode #291 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

This is also episode #20.20 of Across The Sound. Joseph Jaffe is widely regarded as one of the top Marketing Bloggers (Jaffe Juice) and Podcasters (both Jaffe Juice in audio and Jaffe Juice TV in video). He is the author of three excellent books (Life After The 30-Second Spot, Join The Conversation and Flip The Funnel). A long-time friend (and one of the main inspirations behind the Six Pixels of Separation Blog and Podcast), we've decided to hold monthly conversations, debates and back-and-forths that will dive a little deeper into the Digital Marketing and Social Media landscape. This is our 20th conversation (or, as I like to affectionately call it, Across The Sound 20.20). This week, we talk about Joe's latest venture, Evol8tion, and what can happen when Madison Avenue meets Mountain View. Are technology startups the future of marketing? Jaffe is banking on it. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #291.

Tags: across the sound ad age advertising bite size edits blog blogging blue sky factory book oven cast of dads cc chapman chris brogan christopher s penn digital dads digital marketing evol8tion facebook facebook group flip the funnel hugh mcguire in over your head itunes jaffe juice jaffe juice tv join the conversation joseph jaffe julien smith librivox life after the 30-second spot managing the gray marketing marketing over coffee media hacks new marketing labs online social network podcast podcasting pressbooks six pixels of separation social media 101 social media marketing strategy trust agents twist image

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #85

Mitch Joel — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:40:57 PST

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

The Antikythera Mechanism. "I'm kind of obsessed with this thing. It's a piece of machinery built in around 100 BC by the Greeks. It's a computer that can calculate astronomical positions - a thousand years too early. It's so awesome, there's even a song about it. The Greeks knew all sorts of things about disease, math and science. But Emperor Justinian, and church leaders after him, made such 'pagan teachings' heresy and human progress was delayed for centuries. In the middle of the Republican primaries, every time I see well-proven, well-understood things like evolution or global warming or vaccination called into question, I think of this mechanism. Where would we be today if we'd had mechanical computers two thousand years ago, and if reason weren't such a dirty word?" (Alistair for Hugh).
25 Things I Learned From Opening a Bookstore - Open Salon. "The only thing rougher than being a publisher these days is being a bookstore owner. I found this list by owner J L Sathre to be broadly applicable to all manner of small businesses. It's full of obvious -- but seldom implemented -- wisdom." (Alistair for Mitch).
A Swarm of Nano Quadrotors. "I, for one, welcome our robot overloards." (Hugh for Alistair).
The Caging Of America - The New Yorker. "The US is prison-mad. Why? This is a wonderful bit of writing." (Hugh for Mitch).
Jonathan Franzen Continues to Hate Technology - The Atlantic. "This reminds me of that old Saturday Night Live skit where the old curmudgeonly man would say, 'back in my day, we didn't have games! We'd just stare at the sun... and we liked it that way!' I was never one to love sayings like, 'back in the good old days.' In this feature the technophobic author says things like: 'The technology I like is the American paperback edition of Freedom. I can spill water on it and it would still work! So it's pretty good technology,' and 'I think, for serious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience. Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn't change.' Do people who think and say these things even know what they fear? You can spill water on a paperback and still read it? Huh? The last time I spilled a coffee on a book, it went straight to the recycling bin. A sense of permanence? If someone takes my book, it's gone. If my house burns down, my books are gone. I can buy another Kindle and just re-download everything I own. Also, publishers can make available multiple editions and let consumers chose which edition they want. Digital feels more permanent and accident proof to me." (Mitch for Alistair).
No Joke: Alain de Botton Wants To Build Temples To Atheism - Fast Company Design. "Whether Alain de Botton is doing this as a publicity stunt to promote his latest book, Religion For Atheists, or if is he's dead serious, it is this kind of thinking that we - as a society - should think about embracing. Everyone should have the right to believe in God (or not). That being said, none of us can deny the amazing things that humankind has accomplished in such a relatively short matter of time... whether it was with the help of God or not." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags: alain de botton alistair croll antikythera mechanism bitcurrent complete web monitoring emperor justinian fast company design gigaom hugh mcguire human 20 iambik jonathan frazen kindle librivox link exchange linkbait managing bandwidth media hacks nano quadrotors open salon pressbooks religion for atheist saturday night live story the atlantic the book over the new yorker year one labs youtube

Expect Big Changes At Facebook

Mitch Joel — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:17:12 PST

Most companies change dramatically after their initial public offering.

There is a reason that Facebook is going public. And while many are speculating as to the reasons by digging through the company's SEC filing, I think Facebook is going public because it needs to now compensate those who have built it to become the impressive empire that it truly is. It may be a simplistic view, but that's my view. The bigger question that is on everybody's mind is: will Facebook change once they are a public company? The answer is, without a doubt, "yes!"

Is that a bad thing?

No. Not at all. Let's face it: Facebook has been changing since it first started. Does Google look anything like Google before its IPO? What about Apple? The best companies, the most innovative companies are the ones who flow in a constant state of iterative change and evolution. Facebook's challenge comes from its size. The sheer volume of users and the sheer value of the valuation will make it have to perform unlike any company that has come before it. When you have over 800 million users (and closely approaching one billion users), any move (big or small) will ruffle feathers and create backlash within the user community. It's a part of the Facebook ecosystem and you can expect that to increase as the public takes stock in the business.

Applaud Mark Zuckerberg.

In preparation for the IPO, Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, embedded a "letter to the shareholders" within the SEC filing (to read the full letter, please go here: Fast Company - Mark Zuckerberg Hacks S-1 Filing With Letter To Shareholders On Eve Of Facebook IPO) that stated: "Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission - to make the world more open and connected. We think it's important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do... We think a more open and connected world will help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services." While Facebook may not have been created to be a company. It is now a company. A big company. And it's soon to be a company that will answer to Wall Street. I thoroughly enjoyed Zuckerberg's letter and said a silent prayer that Wall Street will listen to what he and the company would like to do. Yes, I'm still that naive (I'd like to think that I'm hopeful for change).

So, what can we expect from Facebook? (here comes the armchair quarterback...)

A change in people. Once the company becomes public a lot of people will become millionaires. The money will change a vast majority of these people. Some will retire, others will take the money to start their own ventures, many of them will lose their motivation and the majority of them will just go bonkers because they're rich (plastic surgery, fancy cars, big houses, etc...). This has nothing to do with Facebook and is much more an indictment of humanity. It happens in every other business, it will happen at Facebook. They are going to have to replace or augment many of the people who have been there for a long while. This will change the culture and possible product development.
Mobile. To stay competitive, Facebook is going to have to up their game when it comes to both mobile devices and smartphones. This is where Twitter was making the most advances and now Facebook is going to have to ensure that the mobile and smartphone Facebook experience is as good (if not better) than the Web-based one.
Touch. While many people simply access Facebook via the web browsers on their iPad and tablets, having a native app that works with a touch navigation (and all of the powerful and different usability that comes along with it) is going to become a much more important component of how Facebook evolves. We are quickly moving to a touchscreen world and Facebook will need to become a leader in this charge.
Beyond the wall. It started when Facebook started allowing people to embed the "like" button anywhere and everywhere, but Facebook is going to have to open up the platform beyond its walled garden. This may not get as extreme as having true data portability, but with the pending slew of connected TVs, Apple television, Google TV and more, people are going to want to access Facebook within many of these new environments and Facebook should welcome the opportunity to be anywhere and everywhere.
Currency. I Blogged about this extensively in March of last year (F-Commerce - Rise Of The Facebook Consumer). With close to one billion connected people, Facebook is not only more populated than the majority of countries, but they have the ability to develop and use their own currency system. It may sound crazy, but one look at Facebook Credits and we could be seeing the very nascent stages of an entirely new monetary system. The idea of people spending money in Facebook and having Facebook provide both the security and transaction to do so is not so far-fetched of an idea anymore.
Marketing. The dollars mentioned in the SEC filing says it all. Facebook has been profitable for the past three years, and a good chunk of the coin has been from advertising revenue. Facebook is much more than a media channel that can fill slots with advertising. The marketing opportunities behind this engine have yet to truly be developed. It is a rich land full of powerful data that knows a lot about people - from where they are and what they like to who they are connected to and what those people are doing. If you think - for a second - that it's only about advertising, you would be sorely mistaken. Facebook and the marketing that comes along with it will be one of the biggest opportunities for the brand... while at the same time it will create the most discussion from the users.

In the end, I'm hopeful that Facebook will change dramatically... but for the better. What do you think?

Tags: advertising apple apple television business connected tv corporate culture currency data data portability economy f commerce facebook facebook consumer facebook credits fast company google google tv hr human resources initial public offering innovation ipad ipo like button mark zuckerberg marketing media channel mobile mobile app native app public company sec filing smartphone social mission tablet touch navigation user community wall street

CTRL AT DEL - The Business Book

Mitch Joel — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 11:30:12 PST

CTRL ALT DEL is the title of my second business book. It will be published in Spring 2013.

Following is the official press release and some media mention of the pending project...

BUSINESS PLUS To Publish CTRL ALT DEL by Mitch Joel

Author of the best-selling business book, Six Pixels of Separation, and President of award-winning Digital Marketing agency, Twist Image, signs with Business Plus for the release of his sophomore book.

NEW YORK, February 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Business Plus, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group USA), has announced it will publish CTRL ALT DEL: Reboot Your Business (and Yourself) in a Connected World by Mitch Joel. Business Plus also published Joel's first book, Six Pixels of Separation, in 2009. 800-CEO-Read ranked Six Pixels of Separation at #13 on their 2010 list of best-selling books, and the book has been translated into French, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese and many more languages around the world.

In making the announcement, Rick Wolff, Vice President, Executive Editor, Grand Central Publishing and Publisher, Editor-in-Chief, Business Plus said, "Six Pixels of Separation was, without question, the best book on how digital media is changing marketing and communications forever. With CTRL ALT DEL, Mitch has truly upped his game. Now it's less about if a business needs Social Media or a mobile application because technology has fundamentally changed the DNA of business. As a leading thinker and doer, Mitch's vision for how this is going to play out is fascinating and in CTRL ALT DEL, he demonstrates how businesses can thrive moving forward. Mitch's book is going to be one of our lead business titles for spring 2013, and we're thrilled to be working together with him again."

Marketing Magazine dubbed him the "Rock Star of Digital Marketing" and called him, "one of North America's leading digital visionaries." In 2006 he was named one of the most influential authorities on Blog Marketing in the world. In 2008, Mitch was named Canada's Most Influential Male in Social Media, one of the top 100 online marketers in the world, and was awarded the highly prestigious Canada's Top 40 Under 40. Most recently, Mitch was named one of iMedia's 25 Internet Marketing Leaders and Innovators in the world. His newspaper business column, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation, runs bi-monthly in both The Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun and he also has a regular column, Media Hacker, on The Huffington Post. His first book, Six Pixels of Separation was named after his successful Blog and Podcast.

"This is a time of great upheaval in business," says Joel when describing CTRL ALT DEL. "The challenge is that most businesses don't know how to adapt and most of the people who are working for these companies don't know how to change. Technology hasn't just transformed how we buy or how we sell our wares to consumers or how we connect socially. Technology has sent business through a rapid state of genetic mutation and we're still in the middle of this evolution. I call this moment in time: purgatory. We're not in hell... but this certainly isn't heaven either. CTRL ALT DEL will both clear the brush and act as a roadmap through this purgatory. The real question this book will answer is: do you want to be employable in the next five years?"

The book deal includes world rights and on exclusive submission to Rick Wolff at Grand Central Publishing by James Levine of Levine Greenberg Literary Agency.

About Business Plus - Grand Central Publishing - Hachette Book Group USA

About Business Pluss/Hachette Book Group:
Business Plus is one of the leading business book publishers in the world today, with such notable authors as Hank Paulson, Jack Welch, Ted Turner, Dr. Robert Sutton, Adam Lashinsky, and many more.

Business Plus is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, which is owned by Hachette Book Group (HBG), a leading trade publisher based in New York and a division of Hachette Livre, the second-largest publisher in the world. HBG publishes under the divisions of Little, Brown and Company, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, Grand Central Publishing, FaithWords, Center Street, Orbit, and Hachette Digital.

CTRL ALT DEL Media:

Tags: 800 ceo read adam lashinsky best selling business book blog marketing business book business plus canada top 40 under 40 center street communications ctrl alt del digital marketing agency digital media dr robert sutton faithwords grand central publishing hachette book group usa hachette digital hachette livre hank paulson imedia infopresse jack welch james levine levine greenberg literary agency little brown marketing marketing leader marketing magazine media hacker media page media purgatory mitch joel mobile application montreal gazette new business newspaper column online marketer orbit reboot rock wolff six pixels of separation social media technology ted turner the huffington post twist image twitter vancouver sun

CTRL ALT DEL Is My Next Book

Mitch Joel — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:34:04 PST

Warning: self-promotional Blog post to follow...

I am very excited to announce that the name of my next book is: CTRL ALT DEL - Reboot Your Business (and Yourself) in a Connected World. The official press release went out this morning via my publisher, Business Plus (an imprint of Grand Central Publishing - Hachette Book Group USA). This is the same publisher as my first book, Six Pixels of Separation, who had the option to pick-up my sophomore business book effort, and I am really (and sincerely) happy that they did. Six Pixels of Separation did some great things (800-CEO-Read ranked it at #13 on their 2010 list of best-selling books, and the book has been translated into French, Korean, Portuguese, Chinese and many more languages around the world). CTRL ALT DEL will be published in the spring of 2013 (early May) and Business Plus has taken worldwide rights to the book (so, expect to see it all over the world in both hardcover, audio and digital formats). Now comes the hard work of pulling it all together.

What's the crux of CTRL ALT DEL?

Six Pixels of Separation was about how (and why) new media had changed business forever. CTRL ALT DEL answers the question "now what?" Now that everyone is on social networks, sharing and conversing, how do you adapt your business to capitalize on just how much our world has changed, and get the edge on where all of this is taking us? I think we've moved past disruption into unchartered territory. If you follow this Blog, you know that this is a time of great upheaval in business. The challenge is that most businesses don't know how to adapt and most of the people who are working for these companies don't know how to change. Technology hasn't just transformed how we buy or how we sell our wares to consumers or how we connect socially. Technology has sent business through a rapid state of genetic mutation and we're still in the middle of this evolution. I call this moment in time: purgatory. We're not in hell... but this certainly isn't heaven either. CTRL ALT DEL will both clear the brush and act as a roadmap through this purgatory. The book will be broken down into two sections. Section one (titled Reboot: Business) looks at the five modern movements that are changing business forever. Section two (titled: Reboot: You) covers the seven triggers that every employee and entrepreneur must have so that they can shift from just doing their jobs to doing the work that they were meant to do.

The real question this book will answer is: do you want to be employable in the next five years?

The book proposal for my second book was supposed to be done two Christmas' ago. I was tinkering with the idea of a book about new business models and how every company could learn from what some of these newer startups were doing, but the flow of the book just wasn't clicking with me. Fast forward to this past holiday season: I was in the shower one morning when everything just fell into place. The whole concept - chapter by chapter - came to me. I spent two days writing a fifteen-thousand word book proposal. I sent it to my literary agent who sent it on to my publisher, and the deal happened in a matter of weeks. I'm really excited because I am writing the book that I would want to read if I were either leading a brand today or thinking about how to move up in an organization or start my own business. The truth is that many are scared because they don't know what to do, while many others see this as one of best opportunities that they will ever have in their professional lifetime. This isn't about simple semantics and shifting mindsets, it's about understanding that during this state of purgatory many business will die and many jobs will disappear, but in the same breath many business will thrive, many new businesses will be created and many new jobs will be invented. The question is: do you want to be employable in the next five years?

I think it's time for business to CTRL ALT DEL. I'm excited about this book and I'm excited for those who are in desperate need of a reboot.

Tags: 800 ceo read best selling business book book proposal book publisher book publishing brand business book business model business plus ctrl alt del e book entrepreneur grand central publishing hachette book group usa literary agent new media purgatory reboot reboot business reboot you reboot your business social network startup technology

When Traditional Media Fails To Understand New Media

Mitch Joel — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 08:03:41 PST

Should you be paid to Blog?

If you want to create a lightning rod of discourse in the online channels, just ask that question. If you want to make that lightning rod look like a mole hill, ask the same question but add in the words, "for The Huffington Post" at the end of the sentence. Don't worry, this is not another Blog post that will evaluate the business model of The Huffington Post (in full disclosure, I write a regular column titled, Media Hacker, every two weeks for The Huffington Post that gives me great pleasure). In today's Montreal Gazette (another publication that I write for and love), there was an article titled, Huffington Post Quebec Loses Bloggers. This is not a geographic story, but a great indication of how traditional media fails to grasp what new media has brought. The crux of the story is that Huffington Post Quebec will be launching next week and nine "high-profile contributors... who had agreed to blog... have now pulled out over controversy they'd be writing for free."

Writing for free is not controversial.

Traditional media seems to believe that unless a writer is being paid, that there is some kind of inequity in the relationship or that someone is being taken advantage of. This is both silly and incorrect. If your full-time vocation is being a writer, you have a choice to get paid to write or to write for free. Simply put: sometimes you're paying the bills and in other instances you are both building a platform and getting promotional benefits from adding your voice in a new and different place. Many of the Bloggers at The Huffington Post leveraged that by-line to get book deals, other writing gigs, speaking opportunities or as a way to bolster their resume (which led to new employment or promotions). I wonder how many of the Bloggers who wrote for free at The Huffington Post and then got a book deal offered back some of that advance to The Huffington Post because without that byline (and the ability for the Blogger to leverage that platform to promote the book), the book deal may not have happened? But, I digress.

The majority of people who Blog for The Huffington Post are not professional writers.

In fact, the majority of the bigger names who contribute to The Huffington Post don't even have a Blog. These politicians, celebrities, artists and thinkers are leveraging (or using) The Huffington Post's massive reach and platform for promotional means. They're using it to put their ideas out there. That was always the spirit of what The Huffington Post offers and it continues to be that way (if you also dig a little deeper, you'll note that The Huffington Post has been hiring a lot of writers, journalists and editors over the past few years). If nine high-profiled individuals have decided that the only way that they would like to take part in a platform like The Huffington Post is to be paid, then they should look at getting a writing gig at some of the newspapers, magazines and TV stations that are promoting a non-news items like this one. If you're not being paid to contribute and anyone can contribute, did The Huffington Post actually "lose" anything? I guess they also lost the other eight million people who live in Quebec who have decided not to contribute?

Does new media undermine journalism?

It's not just about The Huffington Post. There is (still) a tremendous push from professional writers and journalists that providing content for free to online media channels undermines journalism because the content should never be given away for free. The more ardent supporters of this theory will say that it's also killing local writers and taking food away from their families. As a former professional journalist, my reaction is: crazy talk. This Blog has given me both credibility and audience. The output of it has been requests from editors to contribute to magazines, newspapers, TV shows, a significant book publishing deal, speaking opportunities and - most importantly - countless new business opportunities for Twist Image (the main reason we started this Blog in the first place).

Do I get paid to Blog? No. Does Blogging pay? Big time!

I contribute to The Huffington Post and Montreal Gazette for the same reason: to get my name out there in the hopes that it drives many new and powerful opportunities into Twist Image. And - in case you were wondering - so far, so good. If my sole income was based on me selling my words, I would not stop this process at all. In fact, I would recommend ratcheting it up. Why? The more I write for free, the more other media properties want to pay me to write. How strange is this: I have been offered more paid writing opportunities since starting this Blog and contributing to The Huffington Post than when I was a full-time freelance writer back in the nineties.

Everyone benefits.

We live in a free and capitalist society (like it or not). Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything against their will when it comes to contributing to a Blog. It's a choice. If the publisher benefits and the writer benefits, I would argue that everyone benefits. If a writer feels that the publisher will benefit more, there is a very simple resolution: don't do it and start your own. If the writer benefits more than the publisher, maybe the writer should do something to correct that inequity as well. Traditional media is built on a scarcity model (limited space to tell a story and vetted by a small number of editors). New Media is driven by the abundance model (anyone who can contribute is welcome to and the audience will decide what gains traction). It's up to these journalists, writers and bloggers to decide which platform mix works best for their careers.

Now it's your turn: do you think Bloggers should be paid?

Tags: abundance model audience blog blogger blogging book publishing business model credibility editor huffington post quebec journalism journalist magazine media hacker media property montreal gazette new media newspaper online channel professional journalist professional writer publication publisher publishing scarcity model self promotion speaking opportunity the huffington post traditional media tv station twist image writer writing

A Pinteresting Story

Mitch Joel — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:57:23 PST

That Facebook IPO...

With rumors swirling of Facebook's pending IPO (and the billions at play that go along with it), it does seem like the most opportune time for the online social networking behemoth to go public. With over 800 million users and talk that it will hit a billion connected people by the summer, it doesn't seem like Twitter is a true competitor... or that any other competitors are waiting in the wings. In fact, if Facebook's growth and interest continues to propagate, we can expect that more and more platforms will simply offer social networking solutions that can live and play alongside and within Facebook (much like Twitter does). Think about software that was developed for the Windows platform, and this will be a similar strategy for many of the newer social media startups.

That Pinterest thing.

That being said, Pinterest has been gaining a ton of attention lately and widely regarded as one of the hottest new and shiny bright digital objects to come along in some time. Pinterest is a digital mood board mixed with online scrapbooking. Users create a board (it can be anything from cool pictures of cats to the most fascinating business Blogs) and as you come across pieces of content online (and it can be text, images, audio or video), you "pin" the content (which is done by installing a "pin it" button on your web browser's toolbar). Pinterest creates a mood board or visualization of this content. All of the boards that users create are both public and can be followed by others. Users can also connect to one another, share, comment, collaborate and more.

At first blush this may not sound like anything all that groundbreaking.

Pinterest launched in closed-beta in mid-2010. In August of last year, Time Magazine named it in its "50 Best Websites of 2011" and last December, the analytics firm, Experian Hitwise, said that Pinterest's user-base had forty times the number of visitors it had from only six months prior. It was also this past December that it cracked into the top ten social media sites in the world. At the time of that explosive growth, Pinterest was still not openly available to everyone and those wanting to join were relegated to a waiting list.

Is Pinterest delicious?

For those who have been around the digital block, Pinterest seems like a more modern play on Delicious (which is a social bookmarking service for saving and sharing your web bookmarks). Delicious was created by Joshua Schacter in 2003 as the notion of tagging (or labeling) content to make it findable by others begun to take hold. Delicious got acquired by Yahoo in 2005 and became the defacto destination to share one's bookmarks online. Most recently, the two co-founders of YouTube - Chad Hurley and Steve Chen - purchased Delicious and have tweaked it into a place to "find cool stuff and collect it for easy sharing." Back in 2003, the Internet could not really handle too much audio and video, so text-based platforms were more commonplace. If Schacter were launching Delicious today, it would probably look and feel a lot like Pinterest.

What's with all of this sharing, anyway?

Businesses grapple with Social Media because they have been mis-informed that these platforms provide an opportunity for them to have a conversation with their consumers. While this would be panacea, the truth is that what makes something social is simply its ability to be as findable and shareable as possible (strong engagement and conversation can only happen after the other stuff has been mastered). Platforms like Pinterest are rising in popularity because we live in a world of over-sharing (look no further than the river of tweets on Twitter or your wall on Facebook). The only way we're going to get better at curating and aggregating this mass amount of content and bucketing it in a way that feels more cohesive is through platforms like Pinterest (and it's very friendly visualization of content). By sharing this content - which has been both aggregated and curated by human beings - odds are that some of this over-sharing can transition from the world of uselessness and benign to powerful and fascinating.

It's in the way that you use it.

What also makes Pinterest a platform that has captured the attention of many is that - according to Experian Hitwise - the site is especially popular with women between the ages of twenty-five and forty-four (nearly sixty percent of its users). Perhaps the days of new and emerging platforms being dominated by young, male users in the early adoption phase are finally coming to an end, as anybody and everybody has a computer, smartphone and/or tablet in tow? Perhaps the adoption is happening because these newer platforms are simply that much easier and fun to use?

Either way, we're faced with another online place for businesses to pin their hopes on. Pun intended.

The above post is my twice-monthly column for the Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun newspapers called, New Business - Six Pixels of Separation. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original versions online here:

Montreal Gazette - In the mood for Pinterest.
Vancouver Sun - not yet published.

Also of Interest:

Tags: business blog business column chad hurley clickz computer content conversation delicious digital object engagement experian hitwise facebook ipo joshua schacter mashable montreal gazette newspaper column online scrapbooking online social networking pinterest postmedia smartphone social bookmarking social media social sharing startup steve chen tablet tagging time magazine twitter vancouver sun web browser windows yahoo youtube

Blogging Is Dead... Here We Go Again

Mitch Joel — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:53:22 PST

Less and less of the Inc. 500 are Blogging. Blogging is dying.

ReadWriteWeb's post, Blogging Declines Across the Inc. 500, was bound for linkbait heaven. Who doesn't love dumping on a once popular platform - especially when it looks like it is being abandoned by corporate America and the bigger brands? According to the Blog post, "A new longitudinal study at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth focusing on the online activities of the Inc. 500 has found a huge drop in the number of companies maintaining corporate blogs over the past year. The UMass researchers, under the direction of Nora Barnes, has been following this group for several years. Only 37% of those interviewed had a corporate blog last year, down from half of those interviewed in 2010."

Blogging is hard work. Blogging isn't for everyone.

I'm surprised that it took this long to see the decline in Blogging. The truth is that Blogging is a form of publishing and brands are traditionally not all that great when it comes to creating unique, compelling and frequently updated content. The nature of Blogging speeds this up as both frequency (how often you Blog) and micro-interactions (which happens via the back and forth of Blog comments) can be both time consuming and complex. In a world where Facebook, Twitter and YouTube blossomed, it seems obvious that brands would bail on Blogging for something that required less work... in a world where people were spending less and less time consuming this type of content and became more interested in shorter spurts (140 characters of less) and more snappy/quick content in the form of Facebook wall posts or online videos (which doesn't require so much back and forth).

Blogging works for the brands that want to make it work.

You won't see the people at Mashable or The Huffington Post worry too much about this news item because they know the dirty, little secret of Blogging: it's just a publishing platform. It's the content you put into it, how it resonates with an audience and the community that you can build from it that counts. There are many brands (the Twist Image one included) that are seeing nothing but growth and more engagement from their Blogs. This pruning of corporate American Blogs is probably the best thing to happen to Blogging in a long time. Perhaps all of those vapid and narcissistic attempts to convince unsuspecting consumers that their corporate Blog was authentic - when in reality it was either overtly or thinly-veiled marketing pap - will, hopefully, make way for more authentic voices and opinions to rise.

Blogging is not dead.

Blogging is only dead if you're a brand trying to use a Blog as an extension of your advertising or as a way to attempt to control your corporate messaging by using it to humanize the tone. For the rest of us, a Blog is freedom of expression. It's a place where people (and yes, this includes the people who make up the brand) share, engage and connect with one another. I'm not jaded (or stupid). I know that people would much prefer to tweet or update a Facebook page or record a quick video on YouTube (it's easier to create and easier to consume), but not all content is created equal and there are many different audiences for all of this content inequity. Blogging is not dead. Blogging is just a lot of hard work and you have to know what the vision and strategy is at the outset. The reason that most of these Inc. 500 brands have killed their Blog is more likely connected to a lack of vision and conversion model than the popularity of a Social Media platform.

Is Blogging dead or are useless Blogs dying?

Tags: advertising authentic voice blog blog comment blog strategy blogging brand content corporate america corporate blog dartmouth facebook huffington post inc 500 linkbait mashable nora barnes online activity online video publishing publishing platform readwriteweb research social media twist image twitter umass university of massachusetts youtube

Examining Social Media With Michael Stelzner

Mitch Joel — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 08:11:37 PST

Episode #290 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

If you still wonder how to make money on a Blog or what the future of publishing looks like, look no further than Michael Stelzner and his "magazine" Social Media Examiner. In a few short years, Michael has proven that not only does Social Media work to build a new media empire, but yes, you can make money (good and serious money) with a Blog. If you're struggling with what it takes to make compelling content that not only sticks with users, but gets them to share it and talk about, then this episode is just for you. Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #290.

Tags: advertising bite size edits blog blogging blue sky factory book oven cast of dads cc chapman chris brogan christopher s penn digital dads digital marketing facebook facebook group hugh mcguire in over your head itunes julien smith librivox managing the gray marketing marketing over coffee media hacks michael stelzner new marketing labs online social network podcast podcasting pressbooks six pixels of separation social media 101 social media examiner social media marketing strategy trust agents

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #84

Mitch Joel — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:42:17 PST

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Hollywood and Bust - netplaces. "As downloaders everywhere reel from the highs of beating back SOPA and PIPA, followed by the lows of many sources of free movies going dark, it's time for a history lesson. Today's movie industry lobbyists push for the enforcement of copyright law -- but only a century ago, Hollywood was born by an industry trying to avoid paying licenses to the inventors of the camera. That's right: Big Movie was once on the run from Edison and his patent thugs. What a difference a century makes." (Alistair for Hugh).
Riusuke Fukahori Paints Three-Dimensional Goldfish Embedded in Layers of Resin - Colossal. "This is a fascinating approach to sculpture. Or maybe it's painting. It's reminiscent of 3D printing, which is all the rage these days, but it's done by hand. It's also a great introduction to Colossal, which has many other great examples of modern art that's creative, surprising, and often inspiring." (Alistair for Mitch).
Between the Lines - Los Angeles Magazine. "Do we build parking lots so that people can get around cities in their cars? Or do we build cities in order to justify parking lots?" (Hugh for Alistair).
Saudi Arabia. Nigeria. Venezuela. Canada? - Slate. "A Slate article about Canada's new global image." (Hugh for Mitch).
Big Data, Big Dead End - CTRL-SHIFT. "In case you have been living under a rock, the Internet is less about reporting news and facts and much more about the opinions of others. In this instance, Alan Mitchell says that while big data (and how to use) is all the rage, it's simply not going to work out in the way that we need it. Sure, it's easy to take a contrarian viewpoint, but in this instance it's a well thought-out perspective that is worthy of your attention as we all take that dive into the deep end of the big data pool." (Mitch for Alistair).
Applied Neuroscience, the Six-String Method - The New York Times. "I used to play electric bass quite a bit (I was in a band and all). From there I tinkered with a guitar (mostly because my brother was a guitarist), but it has been years since I played. Something came over me the other week (maybe it was because I was listening to The Coffee House Channel on Sirius XM a lot) and I bought an acoustic parlor guitar. A couple of days after that, I was in New York City with my literary agent who just had another one of his authors, Gary Marcus, release his book, Guitar Zero. The famed Cognitive Psychologist decided to learn how to play guitar when he turned 40. This book not only documents his frustration but shows us the complexity of the brain and learning as we get older. Some cool riffs in here... pardon the pun." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags: alan mitchell alistair croll big data bitcurrent colossal complete web monitoring ctrl shift gary marcus gigaom guitar zero hugh mcguire human 20 iambik librivox link link exchange linkbait los angeles magazine managing bandwidth media hacks netplaces pipa pressbooks riusuke fukahori sirius xm slate sopa story the book over the coffee house the new york times thomas edison year one labs

Don't Let Your Brand Be Creepy

Mitch Joel — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:17:00 PST

It's important to remember that being transparent is not the same as divulging personal information.

We have never seen a moment like this on our history. Look at the combined audience of platforms like Blogging, Podcasting, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and more. What you are confronted with is a very interesting journal of how we - as a culture - are. There are both personal and professional components to it. Many people think that we are over-sharing, while others think that we're divulging way too much personal information. If you're looking to better understand what all of this publicness means, I can highly recommend Jeff Jarvis' latest business book, Public Parts.

The brand struggle.

As brands attempt to connect in a more real and human way with their consumers, they're also struggling and straddling the line of what would be considered a best practice (transparency) while fumbling into a world of asking for too much (or getting too personal). Recently, I came across a major consumer electronics manufacturer's Facebook Page and was shaking my head in disbelief at the content. Whoever was managing the community was clearly inexperienced. Going back in their timeline, the content was strong and transparent. They were dealing customer service issues, encouraging people to check out new items, asking their opinions on the industry that the brand serves and also provided interesting insights that were not just self-serving marketing blather. From what I can tell, interest in the Facebook Page from the general public seemed to dissipate over the past month, and suddenly the postings were these strange, personal requests. Things like, "so where are the parties at this weekend?" or asking people more personal questions that have no relation to the brand or their product development. You can see by the lack of response that a line had been crossed.

Brands are not people. People are not brands.

If a friend on Facebook asks, "so, what are you plans this weekend?" it makes sense. It doesn't when a brand does this (unless that brand is in the hospitality industry and trying to get you to come and spend your weekend with them). This is the immaturity of brands as they enter the more social fray. They try to get too personal and instead of it coming off as sincere, it comes off as creepy and pushes people away.

Transparency leads to personal.

If the people who operate on behalf of the brand are transparent in their interactions, then slowly - over time - these people will develop more personal relationships with those who are interacting with them. I think people like Richard Binhammer over at Dell exemplify this. When Dell first became active in Social Media (and they were on there very early on), Binhammer became a lighthouse and because he was truly doing his best to get results and be transparent, people began interacting with him (and many others) that much more. He was being transparent, but it wasn't overly personal and it (obviously) never crossed the line of divulging information about the company that was not relevant to the interaction. It was also done in a way where Binhammer was transparent but not overly personal about his own, personal, life. It struck the right balance.

Truthiness.

We have to be able to take a step back and remember that a lot of these interactions are not only new(ish) for a brand, but it simply wasn't done all that much before the advent of Social Media (don't believe me? Then please read The Cluetrain Manifesto). Brands must use real people to have real interactions with the people interested in them. Those real people must know what the brand stands for and how to communicate that. It's about being transparent without damaging the brand. It's about being personal within the confines of the brand narrative. And, ultimately, it's about adding value and being helpful... it's not about becoming someone's best friend. It's also not about being fake or a corporate shill. It must be authentic and transparent. It shouldn't be creepy.

To what depths do you think a brand should go?

Tags: best practice blog brand community management consumer content culture customer service dell facebook facebook page jeff jarvis marketing personal information podcast product development public parts richard binhammer social media the cluetrain manifesto transparency twitter youtube

A World With No Keyboard And No Mouse

Mitch Joel — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:16:50 PST

How's that user experience working out for you?

I often ridicule the masses (I know, that's very snide of me). When computers were first introduced the mantra was that, "screens are not easy to read or work on." Forget the fact that many dismissed the power of a mobile phone ("is your life that important that you need to make calls when you're not at home or at the office?"), and let's not forget the many people who would often say, "I could never type with my thumbs." To this day, there are still people who don't see the value in platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Twitter (and let's not even get started with things like Google+, tumblr or Pinterest). You probably know somebody who has not switched over to an iPhone or Android device because they think that they can't type on glass.

It's all about to change again... it's all about to get even more complicated.

There has been a tonnage of content produced to analyze the value of Siri (the voice-initiated personal assistant that was introduced with Apple's iPhone 4S). Along with Siri comes a nascent and emerging new way for people to navigate and engage with content: the voice. That's not all. While our kids were futzing around with their Nintendo wii or Xbox Kinect, we may have missed another way to navigate and engage with content: kinetics (or natural gestures).

RIP: Keyboard and mouse?

Can you imagine a day and age when you will not use a mouse or a keyboard? A day when true voice recognition lives and when you want something, you don't even have to touch it (which is all the rave now), but simply use natural gestures to move, navigate and manipulate the things you want to see and use? It's one of those strange things that doesn't quite feel like science fiction anymore but lies on the fringe of our understanding. Voice and kinetic will quickly become the natural way to get things done.

For shame.

Several years ago, I made the attempt to use voice recognition software. It brought me to a strange conclusion: speaking my thoughts is not the same as writing my thoughts down with a pen and paper, and writing my thoughts down with a pen and paper is not the same as typing. Strange but true. As a music journalist, I used to write four CD reviews weekly (remember CDS?). One week, I decided to test this theory, so I wrote one review via voice dictation, one by hand and one on the computer. The result? The flow and context was all off. Because my primary tool for writing for the computer, it was the only review that truly "sounded" like me in a natural way.

What this means for navigation.

As we adjust to a touch world (and, let's not kid ourselves, touching a screen is still a little strange and intimidating for many), we are morphing our human behavior. I'm the first to admit that switching from a BlackBerry to an iPhone has made my emails more succinct and to the point (I think expressing myself on Twitter has added to this as well). Has this made me less communicative or clear? Doubtful, but it has fundamentally changed my communication patterns. As voice and kinetic navigation and usability become a much more predominant force (and let's not kid ourselves, it will), it feels to me like it will change the way brands can interact with consumers (and vice-versa). Pushing that notion further, it seems plausible that the keyboard as we know it today could well become a specialty tool relegated to those who feel like it's the best way for them to communicate in a text-based form (imagine that: a keyboard as a specialty item or a piece of nostalgia). When our daily interactions change so dramatically, it becomes abundantly clear that marketing as we know it will go through a seismic shift in terms of usability, functionality, strategy and creativity. Right down to its core.

Just what we needed: another revolution... and more disruption. What's your take?

Tags: advertising android apple blackberry brand communication computer content creativity disruption facebook functionality google plus human behavior iphone iphone 4s keyboard kinect kinetics marketing mobile phone mouse music journalist natural gestures navigation nintendo nostalgia office pinterest revolution science fiction screen siri smartphone strategy tumblr twitter type usability user experience voice voice recognition wii xbox youtube

And In The End...

Mitch Joel — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:20:21 PST

Do you have a morbid fascination with the end?

I'm not sure why (but I'm pretty certain that a psychiatrist would love to figure it out of with me), but I often think about the end. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm scared about how my life will end (which is in direct relation with the many issues I have around control) and that I don't want it to end any time soon. There are plenty more things that I want to accomplish in my life and I often play the "which would you rather game" when it comes to deciding between family and the rest of my life (in case you're wondering, family wins almost every time). Don't worry, this Blog post will not descend into the scary depths of our mortality. All of this leads me to wonder: "why do I do what I do?"

The truth.

I discovered (mostly through trial and error) that I love the marketing world. I love working with brands and thinking about brands and tinkering with what they can do to connect (more honestly and powerfully) with their consumers. I look around on this flight that I'm on and I see people - from all walks of life - working in various occupations, and all of them are carrying a ton of technology on them. From smartphones and Kindles to iPads and laptops. I can't help but wonder and think about a time in the not-too-distant future when we're no longer carrying these devices around, but they are actually in us... a part of us (you know, sub dermal implants or brain activity activated... who knows?). As I was walking through the airport, I noticed that the current cover story for Wired Magazine is all about self-driving cars. It is these combined instances of science fiction catching up to reality that get me excited. It gets me thinking more about how much I love marketing, and it makes me hopeful that I'll be privileged enough to be alive long enough to see how we innovate from this very innovative moment in time that we currently find ourselves in.

So, what's all this talk about the end?

When I think about my career (or when I see other people thinking about their careers), it strikes me that even with goal setting and planning, it's usually a very shortsighted vision. Think about your current work situation. You're probably wondering about your next bonus or raise, your next step up the corporate ladder or that new business pitch that is just around the corner. Maybe, you're thinking about where you're going to be in the next five to ten years? But what about the end? Recently, I've been thinking about the evolution of marketing and the role that I want to have in it. It made me realize that I only have one true goal for myself in the marketing industry: longevity.

Longevity is key.

In thinking back, it was always there, but it wasn't something that I was able to verbalize or acknowledge until very recently. I want a career in marketing with longevity. Nothing less. In looking at the client work we do at Twist Image, this Blog, the Podcast, the Six Pixels of Separation business book and many of the things that make up my personal work - on a day to day basis - it's all about longevity. How many people do you know who started a Blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn community or many other things that they simply dropped or got bored with? Yes, there's a moment in time when you have to ditch what's not working or even disengage if the platform can no longer deliver economic value to your brand, but in general, I think most brands (and the marketing professionals who represent them) have very short-sighted and short-term goals and visions. This Blog has been around since 2003 and if I think back, I can recall saying to myself that the Internet Gods have given me a great gift to be able to publish without editors telling me what's good or bad and without massive costs to reach an audience. Not only did I commit to it as a platform that fit with our business goal, but I knew that I wanted it to have that longevity as well (sorry, I won't stop Blogging any time soon).

Tortoise of hare?

Longevity doesn't happen quickly. That doesn't mean that I don't put a tremendous amount of focus on creating a sense of urgency. I want stuff to get done (and yes, I like quick wins as much as the next person). The bigger thought here is that when you're focused on longevity (for both yourself, professionally, and the brands you represent), odds are that you're going to do a lot more critical thinking and ultimately, you will be putting things into the market with a much more solid foundation and expectation for outcomes. I'm starting to think about everything in terms of longevity and the value that comes with it.

What are you after?

Tags: amazon apple blog brand business book consumer corporate ladder critical thinking economic value editor facebook innovation ipad kindle laptop linkedin longevity marketing marketing career marketing industry marketing professional online community podcast publishing science fiction self driving cars smartphone technology twist image wired magazine

Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?

Mitch Joel — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:49:12 PST

Is it just a question of getting the facts straight when it comes to our media?

What Blogging brought forth is the notion that opinion lies neatly next to news (and that it is sometimes very difficult to tell the difference between the two). In fact, it's worth arguing that opinion is the new news. Without looking at the political sphere for examples (you get more than enough of that here on The Huffington Post and on other websites, news outlets and Blogs),what does it take create great media?

The heart of the matter.

Emotion is key to driving interest. Human beings are creatures of habits. We like being able to see the actual people who are creating our media and being able to shake their hand. In digital terms, the handshake happens by following them on Twitter and Facebook, or by checking out their LinkedIn profile and seeing if there's any videos of them on YouTube. These online social networking channels not only provide a way to connect more directly with the people who are creating the media, but they also provide a level of social proofing. While these things can be gamed, what we're seeing is a new media landscape that is less driven by facts and realities and much more driven by following those whose opinions are either like yours or share in a similar value system. Imagine that, with all of these new media channels, perhaps our perspectives are becoming that much more narrower.

Does this Blog make me look fat?

It also come from the presentation. This goes well beyond proper grammar and spelling and spills into everything from the way the text, images, audio and video stream from the screen. It has to "look good" (and yes, looking good is about as arbitrary as anything these days). Face it, you've fallen for a Blog post here or there that wasn't exactly Pulitzer material simply because it not only looked good, but was presented in a way that way pleasing to the eye. Don't believe me? The ascent in popularity of infographics has given rise to a lot of attention being doled out to some very minor players. The contents of the infographic is almost as questionable as some of the business practices being put out into the world by the business that are funding these graphic. But, they get the attention because, "hey... infographics are cool and this one has a pleasing color scheme with a lot of statistics on it!" (well-founded or otherwise).

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

In the end, the discourse will set you free. It's increasingly harder to lie, cheat and steal in a world where anyone and everyone has a platform to publish an opinion. So, while your view of what quantifies as honesty may be different from mine, the newer media channels that are experiencing both growth and profitability trend towards the ones that are being honest and not filling their publishing white space with too much hyperbole, marketing pap and industry jargon. Blogs should still amaze you - each and every day - simply because the best ones (no matter how mis-guided some of the content may be) are written from a very open, honest and transparent place (and if they are not, you will know about it by the comments that follow the blog post). With over a decade of Blogging under our global belts, it's still a new and developing form of communications and media that has yet to fully mature and find it's permanent place in the media landscape. It's unique in that the discourse that takes place within the Blog comments - or as the content streams into other channels through sharing - creates new layers that require more in-depth analysis and critique... something that most casual readers don't either the time or interest in.

So, which new media wins?

If your company is looking to publish content and own your own media channels, the content should be emotional (written from your heart), presented well (and this means both from a visual design and user interface perspective), it should be honest and - ultimately - it needs to reflect both the culture and value of the brand (and the person creating the content). It's a tall order, and (probably) the main reason why so few brands have mastered it.

As big as this all is, It's still an open opportunity, and one that most businesses still haven't formally committed to. Sadly.

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker. I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

The Huffington Post - Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?

Tags: blogging business book business column business practices communications content creation digital marketing agency discourse editorial facebook infographic linkedin marketing media media column media hacker media landscape new media news news outlet online social networking opinion publishing pulitzer six pixels of separation the huffington post twiter youtube

Thinking Smarter

Mitch Joel — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:18:10 PST

I've been thinking a lot about thinking lately.

I know, that's very "meta" of me. When was the last time you spent five minute thinking about not only how you learn, but where it's all taking place? People often laugh when they hear that I am reading all of my books exclusively on my iPhone with the Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks apps. In fact, most people scoff at the notion (as if I'm doing some kind of retinal damage or that it's heresy). The truth is that technology has not only facilitated our ability to learn but it has sped it up. I read over thirty books last year, and it would have never happened if I had to carry them all around with me in my backpack.

It's too bad that most people don't realize this and/or take advantage of it.

I love our local library. They have everything there - from books, magazines and newspapers to CDs, movies and activities for the kids. I wouldn't want it to go anywhere, but the truth is that I have most of the information available in that massive space in my smartphone. An exaggeration? Hardly. Do you know how many books I've looked for to no avail at the library, only to pop open my iPhone and buy it through one of book apps that I use? Instead of trolling through the pages of Harvard Business Review, Fast Company or Wired Magazine, I simply subscribe to their feeds and I'm able to not only know when an new issue is on the newsstand (and, for the record, I'm starting to prefer the digital versions of the physical magazines), but their websites are complimented with additional reporting, Blogs, Podcasts and more.

The Internet is nothing new.

...But every day new content comes online that can (and will) make you smarter. Most people don't even know about iTunes U, where you can download, watch and/or listen to some of the best lectures from the most prestigious universities in the world... for free. I can understand why people don't take/make the time to go to their local library to learn, but really, what's the excuse now?

Thinking smarter.

Education is your own problem. I sucked at school (from the beginning until I dropped out of university). It just wasn't for me. Thankfully, my parents instilled in me the importance of education from an early age. That being said, I was much better at playing video games, watching TV and reading comics books than I was at delivering a book report to my teacher's on time. Thankfully, I didn't let my lack of motivation for school interfere with my education as I got older. Yes, you can take courses, add some degrees to the old resume or attend conferences (all powerful and useful ways to keep educating yourself), but you can also set your own curriculum like never before. From text and images to audio and video and it's all (mostly free). Curious about physics? Modern literature? Architecture? Marketing innovation? It's all here. Right here. Just waiting for you.

The brutal truth.

People will often tell me that they can't wait to go on vacation so that they can catch up on their reading. They'll also talk about the sabbatical that they're taking to spend time learning. Here's the truth: you can't catch up on reading and you don't need a sabbatical to learn. In our hyper-connected and competitive business world, you need to be thinking about getting smarter as an iterative and critical part of your day-to-day regiment. Every day that you're not reading or learning something is a waste and you can't "catch up" on vacation. If you make time for the gym, you better make time for the brain too. Thanks to the Web, mobile and touch, it's never been easier.

What do you do to get smarter?

Tags: amazon apple blog book cd comic books conferences education fast company harvard business review ibooks information iphone itunes u kindle learn learning library magazine marketing innovation motivation movie newspaper newsstand podcast reading smart smartphone technology thinking university video games website wired

Thoughts From The Content Marketing Institute

Mitch Joel — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:31:50 PST

Episode #289 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to.

As each year passes newer and more impressive forms of content marketing become available to brands. Social Media acted as a massive catalyst for this. We now live in a world where any business (or individuals) can publish their content - in text, images, audio and video - instantly (and for free) for the world to enjoy. The big question is this: is the world enjoying all of this branded content? Producing relevant and timely content is (and will continue) to be one of the biggest challenges and opportunities for brands as more and more clutter occurs. There's no one better than Joe Pulizzi to help us navigate through the noise. Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute and SocialTract. He writes one of the most popular Blogs on content marketing and is the co-author of two business books on the subject (Get Content. Get Customers and Managing Content Marketing). Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #289.

Tags: advertising bite size edits blog blogging blue sky factory book oven cast of dads cc chapman chris brogan christopher s penn content marketing content marketing blog content marketing institute digital dads digital marketing facebook facebook group get content get customers hugh mcguire in over your head itunes joe pulizzi julien smith librivox managing content marketing managing the gray marketing marketing over coffee media hacks new marketing labs online social network podcast podcasting pressbooks six pixels of separation social media 101 social media marketing socialtract strategy trust agents

Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #83

Mitch Joel — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 09:58:31 PST

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

Your body wasn't built to last: a lesson from human mortality rates - Gravity And Levity. "A sobering explanation of how likely we are to die, and how death stems from the accumulation of problems over time. With graphs, even. Just take solace in the fact that, on average, you'll have twice as many years as your great-great-ancestors to walk this mortal coil. If life's too short to read it, here's the TL;RD: you're twice as likely to die 8 years from now as you are today. Compound interest is a bitch: go update that will." (Alistair for Hugh).
Lockdown - BoingBoing. "A week or so ago, it occurred to me that with tablets, we copy and share at the pleasure of the application. This seemed the germ of a powerful idea; as with most such things, I tweeted it, resolved to write it down, and went on to other things (like making anti-SOPA T-shirts.) Then I read this, and realized that I didn't have much to add. I've long been a fan of Cory Doctorow's writings. I met him briefly at an O'Reilly event last fall and was amazed that he's not just wide, but deep. He knows the ins and outs of protocols and legislation as well as he knows his characters' warts and wonderments. Lockdown is no exception. He takes a step back and offers a clear, crisp explanation of the real war we're facing -- a war on general-purpose computing -- of which DRM, SOPA, Bittorrent, and Napster are merely skirmishes. It's superb, meaty, and doesn't suffer fools." (Alistair for Mitch).
How Copyright Industries Con Congress - CATO@Library. "The big news this week was the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) blackout, a sweeping protest by thousands of websites over proposed legislation in the US that the entertainment industry say is essential for protecting copyright, and the tech world says will break the Internet. You should inform yourself about these issues, and make your own decisions. But, in the mean time, you should read this article about the numbers bandied around about by proponents of the law, claiming $58 billion annual losses due to piracy, and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. Turns out the numbers are bullshit. So says the General Accounting Office, the non-partisan government organization tasked with analyzing the numbers presented to congress. That doesn't stop every journalist writing about this issue from quoting the numbers though." (Hugh for Alistair).
Dodd Calls for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to Meet - The New York Times. "If you want to know what's wrong with how laws are made, read this article about former good-guy and ex-US Senator, Chris Dodd, who is now the chairman and chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America, and one of the main guys tasked with pushing SOPA through Congress. What's shocking about this article is how irrelevant the substantive concerns about this proposed law seem to be to Dodd. Instead, the failure was one of lobbying power: Dodd and company didn't move fast enough, or lobby hard enough. They say that if you like eating sausage, don't watch it being made. Oh, and by the way: the bullshit $58 billion claimed in losses due to piracy? Yep, quoted without comment in this article." (Hugh for Mitch).
Introducing the i-Lab - Harvard Magazine. "I believe that the next five to ten years of business are going to be radically different from anything that we have seen before. While we'll still see a ton of disruption, I think the shift to the creative class powered by technology will push us into a new post-disruption world. More simply put, 'ok, we have online social networking, mobility, connectivity and new business models everywhere, but now what?' It's going to be a very telling time, and it pleases me to see more traditional institutions (like Harvard) making tangible attempts to keep education at pace with this brave new world. If we can foster the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship with those making serious life decisions in terms of professions and opportunities, there's a much higher chance that we'll all wind up being just a little bit better off." (Mitch for Alistair).
Quit Whining About SOPA and PIPA. Where's the Public Outrage Over Internet Piracy? - Seattle Weekly. "I wasn't going to pile-on another SOPA - PIPA piece (there's plenty of 'em to go around... just look above), but I could not resist. In this op-ed piece, former Guns n' Roses bassist, Duff McKagen, states his pro-SOPA case: 'The fury from the Internet class is that the broad language in the pieces of legislation will be bad for start-ups, might prevent the next YouTube, or give the government the ability to take down a whole site because of one link to copyrighted works. In short, they're opposed to the legislation because they think it will be bad for the Internet business. Bad for business. Anti-piracy legislation could be bad for the Internet business. It almost takes my breath away. Internet piracy has claimed half of the recorded music business, and made the prospect of making a living as a musician harder for artists of all rank and file. Why didn't Google, or Facebook, or Wikipedia ever stand in solidarity with musicians, actors, and writers - most of whom have never known fame and fortune - as their works were stolen with no recourse on their sites?' Remember folks, there are (at least) three sides to every story. What is the best part of this op-ed piece? Why, the 270+ comments, of course. Poor, Duff." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

Tags: alistair croll bitcurrent bittorrent boing boing cato at library chris dodd complete web monitoring copyright cory doctorow drm duff mckagen facebook general accounting office gigaom google gravity and levity guns n roses harvard magazine harvard university hugh mcguire human 20 i lab iambik internet piracy librivox link link exchange linkbait managing bandwidth media hacks motion picture association of america napster oreily pipa pressbooks seattle weekly sopa story the book over the new york times wikipedia year one labs youtube

The Digital Push Pushes On

Mitch Joel — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:24:16 PST

You can bet I'm going to sound the trumpets any time online advertising makes an impressive move.

On January 19th, 2012, eMarketer dropped another stunning bomb for the advertising world in the news item, US Online Ad Spend to Close in on $40 Billion. Beyond the big numbers (40 billion dollars big) and the impressive growth (online advertising will grow 23.3% in 2012) came the news that "this year, US online ad spending will exceed the total spent on print magazines and newspapers for the first time, at $39.5 billion vs. $33.8 billion. And as online shoots up, the print total will continue to inch downward," according to the report. This is an incredible shift in the media landscape, especially if you consider that we're only talking about advertising and not overall digital marketing spend (Web development, mobile development, Social Media engagement, etc...).

Will online advertising surpass TV advertising next?

Not likely (at least not any time in the near future). According to the report, "spending on TV, however, appears largely unaffected by the growth of online. As internet ad spending rises, so will TV--albeit more slowly, and from a larger base. eMarketer estimates TV will grab $72 billion in US ad dollars in 2016, $10 billion more than will go online." What we're witnessing is the rise of active media as the dominance of passive media continues to do what it does so well (anesthetize the masses so that they can forget about the boring/terrible day that they had as it fills their heads with dreams and wants). The rise of active media (more on this here: The Next Layer Of Social Media) is where this gets interesting. Perhaps brands are no longer seeing this as a zero-sum game and are getting better (and wiser) at the notion of creating engagements that can be appreciated in both the active and the passive platforms.

Media is no longer a passive game.

There is no doubt that the digitization of media will continue to push on, The big shifts in the more passive media (TV, radio, print, etc...) will be in figuring out which of these media can actually morph into something that much more active (as consumers continue to become more and more comfortable with an active media engagement). The biggest and most telling move in this space will come from what both Apple and Google do with their pending television plays. According to the hints and whispers we hear about Apple's television products, they could well be using the Siri platform for vocal commands (bye bye remote control) or we could see Xbox Kinect-like technology for more of a Minority Report like kinetic movement experience. The other interesting factor will be how Facebook expands and develops its marketing and advertising opportunities. With close to one billion connected people, sharing and creating content, the time is ripe for the engagement to go well beyond targeted display advertising real estate.

No boiling the ocean.

With close to two decades of a commercialized Internet, the rise has been both swift and disruptive. It's going to continue. While some brands are struggling with the digital transition, it's becoming clearer that all brands understand both the power and the opportunity that lies before them. While it's never too late to transition to a digital-first posture, the brands that still attempt a "boil the ocean" strategy are usually the ones who are not being both strategic and iterative in their marketing mix and in understanding this developing opportunity for a new brand narrative. Ultimately, it's exciting to see this transition, but even more exciting to be a marketing professional during this time.

The question is: will brands see this as the amazing opportunity that it is or cave in from fear and apathy?

Tags: active media advertising apple brand brand narrative digital first posture digital marketing digital transition digitization of media display advertising emarketer engagement facebook google internet advertising kinect magazine marketing mix marketing professional media landscape minority report mobile development newspaper online advertising online advertising spend passive media print radio siri social media technology television advertising tv advertising web development xbox

Adapt Or Die

Mitch Joel — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:32:34 PST

Do you like the saying, "adapt or die"?

There are days when it is the soundtrack of my life and then there are days when I shake my head at what the connotation truly means. You see, it's easy to be an armchair quarterback and say that the newspaper industry, the music industry, the book publishing industry, the retail industry, a traditional advertising agency... and almost every other industry should adapt or die. We live in interesting times (to steal a turn of phrase from the ancient Chinese curse) but it's not so easy to make the pivot that Eric Ries writes about in his business book, The Lean Startup when you're not a lean startup but a business that's been around the block (and has the scars to prove it).

Instead of shaking your finger at those businesses turn the question on yourself.

Do you find it easy to adapt? Most of us do, but when it comes to the saying, "adapt or die," we're not just talking about learning a new skill set or taking on more duties at the office. What we're really saying is change everything and start fresh. Think about it. When we say to a newspaper, "adapt or die," what are we really saying...

Your business model is no longer viable.
Your current business model is becoming obsolete.
All of your investments (printing press, skilled labor, transportation, etc...) are now a liability.
Your staff are no longer in touch with the newer business models.
There are less and less consumers interested in what you are selling.
Your way of doing things converted to the digital frontier does not equate to the same revenue.
Your channels of innovation aren't nimble enough to beat a fresh startup.
Your technology is already considered a legacy system.
Your employees (who may even be unionized) don't make it easy to change.
Your shareholders will not stand for a revolution, they want continued and stable growth. Not risk.

What would you do?

It's easy to say, "go digital. It's all about the Web or mobile or Social," but these are companies that have both a legacy and a functioning business model. While that business model may be tarnished in this day and age, it is still profitable and keeps many people employed. Must that all be destroyed in order to truly thrive in our ever-changing economy? Again, put yourself in their shoes... would you be able to pull the trigger? To break the leaseholds, to fire everyone (or almost everyone), to completely disrupt the business model for a new one, to begin the long (and arduous) process of (basically) starting over, to recruit, hire and train a new team for the this new work, to educate both yourself and those who may be able to make the transition effectively... and on and on?

Adaptation, disruption and resting on your laurels.

Is there an example of a business that didn't completely implode everything and start over and - by the same token - didn't just sit back and let the evolution of business send them towards distinction? The answer is, of course, "yes." When you actually start digging down deep into how these companies have evolved and stayed relevant, you won't see business models that look like anything from the playbooks of Apple, Google or Facebook. These aren't radical organizations in a constant state of innovation and breakthrough technology. There are, literally, thousands of companies that have been around for over three decades that have managed to turn profits (maybe not year on year, but overall). Many of these companies we would consider to be both conservative and boring (I'm sure the shareholders are fine with being described as such), but things are about to get just a little more funky.

This isn't the end.

The fallout of these disruptive times in business shows us that we're still in the middle of it. The challenge for business is to not remain stuck in the past and not get too comfortable with how things are today. Pushing that further, you can't only be focused on the future (because we all know how bad we are at predicting that). Is it time to take chances? Absolutely. Is it time to blow everything up and start over? Maybe for some, but not for many. Is it time to kill even the profitable business units because you know there's no future in it? That's a very tough call. Regardless of what we - as business owners - are capable of, there are bigger forces at play: technology, connectivity, mobility, analytics, data, creativity, commerce, publishing and more will continue to reshape and change how we do business. My guess is that the next five to ten years are going to make the past decade's disruption seem minor in comparison.

Adapt or die? Maybe it's more like tweak and iterate?

Tags: adapt or die adaptation analytics apple book publishing business business evolution business model commerce connectivity consumer creativity data digital frontier disruption eric ries facebook google innovation mobile music industry newspaper newspaper industry retail technology the lean startup traditional advertising agency

Don't Break The Internet

Mitch Joel — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 11:03:18 PST

Are you as confused about SOPA and PIPA as I am in relation to the marketing world?

There is an overabundance of information, discourse and content about SOPA, PIPA and what this means to our world. Do you need to cut through the clutter and get a simple and clear description of, exactly, what the challenges are? This 13-minute TED presentation by Clay Shirky (author of Here Comes Everybody and Cognitive Surplus) is absolutely amazing.

A consumption only Internet? If this doesn't make you care about the future of technology, I don't know what will.

If this still isn't clear, maybe Jon Stewart can help you understand it (nerds!!!)...

Tags: clay shirky cognitive surplus here comes everybody internet jon stewart marketing pipa sopa technology ted

The Size Of The Boat. The Motion Of The Ocean.

Mitch Joel — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 18:22:20 PST

Does size matter? Get your mind out of the gutter.

As one of my main roles at Twist Image, I act as the frontline (along with a great team of people) of assessing new business opportunities. While some agencies may have their opportunity filter down to a science, I'd happily contend that our process has little bit more art sprinkled into it. With that comes a reality: we have two offices, about one hundred plus people and as one of the four owners of this business, the responsibility to keep the lights on and those families fed looms large on my mind. Does this mean that we take work for the money? Yes. This is a business and a large function of it is about making money and it is (sometimes) easy to fall into the trap of doing something because the money is good, but the money is not what the work is about.

The work is about the work.

There is no major innovation here, but I believe that people who are doing the work that they were meant to do not only get paid the money that they deserve to be paid, but that the clients (or the benefactors of the work) are happy to pay these fees because they are getting value out of it. Is it a perfect world? No. There are hiccups along the way. In most cases, the reason has to do with alignment. It could alignment around values, ideas, direction and more. We're all sentient beings and we're looking to work with those who are - ultimately - like-minded and committed to the brand... and the best work possible.

Are you a titan?

On the flight home from the National Retail Federation's Big Show (where I gave a keynote address for the Shop.org First Look Track), I was watching the CNBC Titans special on Leo Burnett (if you have not had the opportunity to see this documentary on the legendary ad man, I highly recommend it). The story of Burnett's ascent in the advertising world is one for the books. How he managed to build his empire from a small Chicago hotel suite to a multi-billion dollar global advertising engine will take your breath away. As an agency owner, I was more attracted to the moments when the agency stumbled. Was Leo Burnett better as a smaller shop, medium-sized agency or a global entity?

There are pluses and minuses.

Growth for growth's sake is never a good thing. Sudden growth because of a major new client acquisition can be challenging to scale as well. There are countless potholes on the road to growth and a simple pebble on the side of the road can be as distracting as the transition from a residential road on to the freeway. That being said, I think it's going to be increasingly difficult for the very small shops to grab the bigger brands (and keep them). Now, before you go jumping all over the comments and telling me that your small boutique firm works with some of the largest brands in the world, let me be clear that I am talking about full-service (or fairly close to it). I have no doubt that some of the smaller, boutique specialty shops who work in a very specific niche can do great, global work.

The size of the boat.

It's a two way street. Brands have to know their limitations and their expectations. When a small start-up tries to engage with a middle-to-large sized agency, it probably won't be a great fit. Box within your weight class. Find a shop that is (somewhat) similar in size that can be both nimble and rugged. Bigger brands who engage with the smaller, boutique shops usually get great results, but as the business grows and the brand requires more attention, it can be extremely challenging for the agency to keep the client happy (both in terms of work and brining on the right people quick enough).

So, what's the lesson?

Size matters because size is a function and part of finding the right fit. Should brands take chances on the new, smaller agencies? Of course they should (and brands did that when Leo Burnett wasn't the Leo Burnett we all know and respect), but as the world gets more complex and more fragmented (in terms of media and marketing options), we're going to see things change. Traditional agencies are already bulking up on their digital capabilities and the digital marketing agencies that have scaled will probably be pulling some of the more traditional folks over to their side to bulk up as well. My guess is that brands are going to be looking for both creative innovation and the scale to get the work done.

What's your guess?

Tags: ad man advertising advertising agency big show boutique agency brand business development cnbc titans digital marketing documentary entrepreneur innovation leo burnett mad men marketing agency media fragmentation national retail federation nrf shop org startup twist image