Brand Interactivism

TEDxMidAtlantic - My 7 Favorites from TED

2009-11-06T12:37:27-05:00

Yesterday I attended the TEDx conference held in Baltimore. First of all, a HUGE round of applause for the army of volunteers that put the conference together. The organization of the conference was largely crowdsourced, and they did a fantastic job. A special "thank you" to Dave Troy for being the chief cat-herder, and more broadly for his overall contribution to connecting the creative community of Baltimore.

The conference was inspirational and thought-provoking, to say the least. Videos of the conference are available at http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live, and I understand they will be put onto the Global TED site eventually.

For those not familiar with TED:

TED conferences bring together the world’s leading thinkers and doers for a series of talks, presentations and performances. TED celebrates the convergence of Technology, Entertainment, and Design. TED events have been called “The ultimate brain spa,” “Davos for optimists” and “A journey into the future, in the company of those creating it.”

I felt honored to be there, and especially enjoyed the opportunity to meet a whole bunch of interesting and interested people. I look forward to keeping up with my new friends.

So, without further delay, and in no particular order, here is a quick summary of my seven favorite talks:

Tony Geraci

Live Video Feed - http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#TonyGeraci

Tony is working to dramatically change the quality of food served in the Baltimore public schools. His passion was overflowing and his message important. He asked how we can expect our children to learn anything when they are bouncing out of their chairs high on sugar. He aims for this work to become a model the entire nation can learn from.

Roland Griffiths

Live Video Feed - http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#RolandGriffiths

Roland spoke about his research into the effects of magic mushrooms on the brain. OK, not exactly - but he is researching the effects that the drug psilocybin has on peoples' experiences of the world. He has found that a single session with the drug can enormously enhance a person's well being, connectedness and spirituality, even more than a year later. I'm not advocating drug use, but this really was fascinating stuff.

Naomi Natale

Live Video Feed - http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#NaomiNatale

Naomi is an installation artist, which basically means she's doing art projects on a huge scale. She has brought together huge numbers of volunteers to make this happen. Her Cradle Project was beautiful and her upcoming One Million Bones project has the potential to be super-powerful. Mostly, I just loved how passionate she was about her craft.

Will Noel

Live Video Feed - http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#WillNoel

I had previously seen a shorter version of this talk at Ignite Baltimore, but it was great to get more details. Basically, Will and his team have spent the last decade or so figuring out how, using advanced scientific techniques, to extract the text of the only surviving book written by Archimedes. This book has been physically chopped up, overwritten, and attacked by mold and decay, and yet Will's team has managed to get access to this source material, changing our understanding of mathematical history.

Marcus Ranum

Live Video Feed - http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#MarcusRanum

Marcus' talk greatly spoke to the techie in me, but even more so to my role as system architect. Did you know that because of a single bug in the FTP protocol that could have been easily fixed in less than one day, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spend on firewall technologies over the years that could have been unnecessary in the first place? Tiny design flaws and installed bases can have an enormous financial and social impact downstream. Especially in software, everything is interrelated and what may seem like a simple fix in one place can have unintended consequences.

Joel Salatin

Live Video Feed - http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#JoelSalatin

The essence of the egg. Enough said.

Ana Vidovic

Live Video Feed - http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#AnaVidovic

A virtuoso on the guitar and a fantastic way to end the conference.

Long Form Journalism Doesn't Work Online

2009-08-26T17:04:56-04:00

So says Josh Tyrangiel, Managing Editor of Time.com.

Josh's message is that long-form journalism does great in a magazine where the reader has made a commitment to tune out the world for at least several minutes to read through an article, but not so well online where attention is in much shorter supply and the majority of readers are trying to squeeze in their news fix during a short lunch break at work. As a result, roughly 95% of all content on Time.com is exclusive to the web.

The lesson for publishers is to realize that the web is a different medium than print, with different opportunities. Perhaps print isn't dead after all - it's just more specialized.

Posted via email from Thinking on the Edge

Gartner's WCMS Magic Quadrant is Unfair to Open Source

2009-08-07T11:33:22-04:00

This week, Gartner released their "Magic Quadrant" study of the web content management system market.

"This Magic Quadrant will help CIOs, and business and IT leaders that are analyzing their Web strategies to assess whether they have the right WCM offering to support them."

While acknowledging the "increased popularity and traction for open-source offerings," once again Gartner has failed to include any open source CMS's in the report. The reason, Gartner claims, is:

"Open source still accounts for less than 4% of the revenue by which Gartner defines the size of the WCM market. This percentage is growing slowly, based on the inherent licensing models used for the offerings. This year, no vendors offering open-source software (OSS) have reached the revenue threshold for inclusion in our formal analysis."

Later in this article, Gartner clarifies the revenue threshold, stating:

"WCM total software revenue (including new licenses, updates, maintenance and/or subscriptions, SaaS, hosting and technical support) for 2008 must exceed $8 million. The software must be available as a stand-alone product or offering."

The thing is, this is entirely unfair. One of the major advantages of open source software is that licenses are free, as in $0, as in no revenue whatsoever. So basically, Gartner is punishing open source software for this. For the most part, open source software only costs money for maintenance, hosting and technical support. Licenses and updates, which in the CMS world can cost a small fortune, cost nothing at all when using open source software.

In my opinion, vendor revenue is a particularly poor metric for evaluating whether businesses "have the right WCM offering to support them."

What do you think? Anyone from Gartner care to comment? Is vendor revenue a reasonable measure in a software market where there are an abundance of open source solutions?

Reuters vs. AP (or Free vs. Closed and the Future of Journalism)

2009-08-06T13:43:20-04:00

Chris Ahearn, President of Media at Thomson Reuters, blogged about his view on the Associated Press' move to start charging $2.50 per word if you want to quote five or more words from one of their articles. This is partially in response to the Ian Shapira article at the Washington Post about how Gawker ripped him off and how that's causing the "death of journalism." Mr. Shapira's view is, it seems, fairly widespread in the journalism world. Last week I watched a debate on Twitter started by Bart Hubbuch, the Mets beat writer for the New York Post, who was supporting Mr. Shapira.

The money quote from Mr. Ahearn's blog post (which Reuters will not charge me for):

"Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions."

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is going to start charging online for ALL of News Corp-owned content fairly soon.

Now, I'm going to quote from an AP article, but only four words... "would bring liberal bias". Whew, I don't owe them any money for that. If I had used just one more word though...

What do you think? Will it work to charge online for content? Is there a way to make it work?

Posted via email from Thinking on the Edge

Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule

2009-07-30T10:29:52-04:00

Paul Graham is right on the money about the disconnect between the most productive schedules for producers vs. managers. Great managers understand the disconnect and protect their producers.

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

Yahoo! Getting Out of the Search Business

2009-07-29T14:45:25-04:00

It appears that Yahoo!, one of the earliest pioneers of search, is getting out of the search business. No, they are not exactly conceding the race to Google. Rather, they decided that they needed to combine with Microsoft in order to become Pepsi to Google's Coke. Basically, Yahoo! is dumping their own search engine and integrating Bing as a substitute.

Fix your terrible, insecure passwords in five minutes. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine

2009-07-27T13:21:34-04:00

via slate.com

Slate publishes a clever way to have a more secure, but still memorable set of passwords for the web. This is important, especially in light of the Twitter - TechCrunch fiasco.

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

Marketing Small Businesses With Twitter

2009-07-23T16:32:04-04:00

via nytimes.com

This is currently the 3rd most emailed article on NYTimes.com. Not a ton of depth, but worth a quick read for a few anecdotes about how using Twitter is helping some small businesses.

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

Zappos/Amazon Merger - Will This Affect the Agency Review?

2009-07-22T17:51:02-04:00

I wonder if this will affect their agency review.

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-buys-online-shoe-retailer-zappos-for-800-million-2009-7#

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

Agencies Have to Take Their Own Medicine - Small Agency Diary - Advertising Age

2009-07-20T16:52:41-04:00

via adage.com

Peter Madden is correct when he posits that agencies (especially small ones) don't do enough to promote themselves - and certainly not at the level of work they do for their clients. We frequently find ourselves in this predicament, but I think the major culprit is simply the old "shoe cobbler's children" syndrome. We always put ourselves last. We always wish we had more time to do great work for our clients, so the last thing we're going to do is steal from our most limited resource - time - to promote ourselves.

That said, at some point it has to be done.

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

Curating the Web - Best Practices

2009-07-16T18:11:20-04:00

Publishing 2.0 has listed some best practices for media organizations that want to "create significant value for readers by curating the web." Click on the post, "Best Practices for Journalists Curating the Web" for the details, but their list includes:

Make it a collaborative effort
Comment to explain why the link is worth clicking
Attribute links to individual journalists
Share links on Twitter
Integrate into existing workflow
Complement original reporting

Good advice.

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

Magazines Struggling on the iPhone

2009-07-16T18:00:04-04:00

http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/14/iphone-magazines-mobile-technology-wireless-iphone.html

According to Forbes, magazines are having a really hard time figuring out how to make any money on the iPhone. Any ideas?

Posted via email from Thinking on the Edge

Zappos Review Ignites Agency Ire

2009-07-16T17:40:48-04:00

From adweek.com: NEW YORK The chance to work with a hot brand like Zappos is too much for many agencies to pass up, even when it means pouring in tons of time, effort and money into a Byzantine review process in which they have little chance of succeeding. Zappos recently got RFP responses from 104 agencies, with 22 then chosen to do 90-minute presentations at Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas this week. In an unusual twist, it required shops to submit storyboards and ad mockups for the initial round, all in a tight two-week turnaround.

Frankly, the sheer amount of time Zappos has spent on this is insane. This is a broken process. I know Zappos is all about openness, but this sort of thing isn't fair to anybody.

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

A Typical Abstract Edge Operational Meeting

2009-07-16T17:13:30-04:00

(653 KB)
Watch on posterous

Posted via email from Thinking on the Edge

Twitter CEO: How Not To Get Hacked Like Us

2009-07-16T15:45:29-04:00

via businessinsider.com

Do you use the same, weak password for all of your assorted logins? Don't.

Posted via web from Thinking on the Edge

Junta42 blog: 10 Reasons Why You Won't Do Content Marketing (and continue doing the same thing)

2009-07-16T12:36:51-04:00

It really is amazing how far a good content marketing strategy can go relative to a TV ad purchase.

Posted via web from Scott's New Blog

The Top Ten Ways Twitter Has Benefited Me (So Far...)

2009-03-28T12:46:09-04:00

Micro-blog service Twitter is the social networking flavor-of-the-month, and with good reason. According to Nielsen Online (through the BBC) Twitter grew 1,689% from February 2008 through February 2009. While still a fraction of Facebook's size, Twitter is getting a lot of buzz.

However, when I discuss Twitter with people I find that more often than not I'm told, "I don't really get Twitter". This is true even for people who are full-on participants in Facebook and so are open to social networking in general. A lot of folks seem to think it's just a lot of noise. "Why do I care what some random person had for lunch?"

So, I thought it might be helpful to explain how Twitter has benefited me. I've had a Twitter account since July 2007 but only started using it frequently in the last few months.

1. Got immediate help when the iPhone 1.11 software upgrade temporarily bricked my iPhone

When Apple released its updated iPhone software in September 2007, I had all sorts of problems. I wrote about my experiences on Twitter and immediately got feedback that a) I wasn't the only one having the problem and b) there were ways to fix it. While I ultimately figured out how to get the issue resolved on my own, it was fantastic being about to troubleshoot in real time with other people going through the same thing.

2. Received feedback about Abstract Edge's website

My company, Abstract Edge, is in the long overdue process of redesigning its website. I've already had a couple of Twitter conversations about what works and does not work on AE's current website. This is fantastic! It's like a free focus group. Of course we can choose to do with the information whatever we want, but how else could we get semi-random feedback for free outside of something like Twitter?

3. Re-built my professional network

Last summer I moved to the Baltimore area. As I had come to realize over time, one of the great things about my company was that it affords me the ability to live nearly anywhere, as long as I have easy access to the Internet. The pros and cons of that decision may make it into another blog post (or several), but one consequence of the move was that I was no longer super-close to my professional network, which was (and largely remains) based in New York. I've been absolutely determined to build up my network in Baltimore, and Twitter has helped enormously. I have literally communicated with dozens of locals within my industry, have become aware of local industry-related events, and have even met many of these people face-to-face. As one example, just this past week I attended Outlet Baltimore, which is an event specifically designed to allow people who meet on Twitter an opportunity to meet in person. Fantastic!

4. Attended a conference virtually

I was interested in attending the BRITE conference in NYC a couple months back but couldn't get away. Nonetheless, I was able to follow several of the talks in real time because a reasonably large number of people were 'tweeting'. I could participate in a back-channel conversation with people who were actually there, could ask questions and received plenty of answers from different points of view. I had a similar experience while attending an online webinar a few months ago. I LOVE this use of Twitter.

5. Helped my sore back

One of the people I'm connected with on Twitter complained of a sore neck, and then later tweeted that Tiger Balm had really helped him. I asked him about it since my upper back has been killing me the last few days. He gave me a recommendation and I'm planning to try it. One thought I had on this though. Wouldn't it make sense for the Tiger Balm company to monitor Twitter for anybody who complains of a sore back, sore neck, sore whatever and actively suggest Tiger Balm to them?

6. Support help from DirecTV

Speaking of companies that seem to be doing at least SOMETHING right on Twitter, I present DirecTV. I had a pretty big support problem recently and several technicians came out to investigate over the course of a couple of weeks. Turns out that the dish itself was not properly attached to our roof and was close to actually crashing down. Two of the technicians had previously claimed to have gone up to the roof to make sure the dish was secure, which as it turned out was a lie. Given how dangerous a situation this had been, I publicly complained about it on Twitter. Within an hour, a DirecTV representative contacted me, asked several questions and launched an investigation. Ultimately, I received a refund. Frankly, just the fact that they seemed so proactive and interested in my problem was comforting and made me feel a little bit better. They handled a crisis situation well, simply because they were monitoring for it.

7. Learned about the Austin Website debacle

Recently there was an outcry in the city of Austin about a local government contract that was about to be awarded to a Californian company to produce a Plone-based website. The contract was for more than $700,000 and many in Austin felt that it was ridiculous to give such a large contract to an outside vendor when there are so many good local tech companies. It turns out there was a lot more behind all of this and some of the facts are still coming out, but I found this entire story fascinating. I got to "speak" directly with Austin locals and defenders on both sides. There was a lot of misinformation going around, in particular about Plone, and I had an opportunity to help educate people on Plone's strengths and weaknesses.

8. Provided Plone education globally

Along the lines of #7, Twitter has given me an opportunity to educate people throughout the world about Plone, a particularly useful open source content management system that Abstract Edge has long used. I have also learned more about Plone (and other CMS platforms) from others - both those inside and outside the Plone community.

9. Found out about new the U2 album

I'm a big U2 fan, and I'm sure I would have learned about it eventually anyway, but the place I first learned that they had a new album coming out was on Twitter. I even learned a bit about how the album compared to previous U2 albums. I was told it was more like Pop than the last two albums - I'm not sure I agree now that I've heard it.

10. Was introduced to the Harmony Universal Remote Control

This one just happened today and I haven't acted on it yet, but I asked on Twitter a simple question about how to get DirecTV's remote working for my audio receiver. I got several responses that pretty much all suggested I replace my remotes with a Harmony remote from Logitech. More than one person gave me specific advice on which model to get, what to look for, etc. Without Twitter, I likely would never have known about this in the first place, let alone been armed with such specific real-life information about the product. Still, again, I wonder where Logitech is in this conversation?

So there you have it - ten reasons why Twitter has been wonderful for me.

Please let me know how Twitter has benefited you.

Time to Reconsider the Open Source CMS

2008-12-05T16:26:28-05:00

Henry Donahue, Discover Magazine's esteemed CEO (disclosure: Discover is a client of Abstract Edge), has written on Folio some of his impressions of using the open source CMS Plone over the last couple of years.

From the full article:

Based on my conversations at trade events, however, many publishers still struggle with the basic issue of getting content online in a way that is timely, efficient and interactive. On top of that, the twin financial and publishing crises make it unlikely that anyone can round up the capital to do a 1999-style $5 million custom CMS development.

Enter the open source content management system.

At Discover, we went with Plone, which was recommended by our outside developers and seemed to combine a simple, intuitive platform with a robust open source development community. You can read a case study about our March 2007 launch here at the Plone site.

Almost three years later, here are my takeaways on our open source experience...

It makes my week when a client publicly proclaims satisfaction. He also brings up a key point. During this time when everyone is trying to figure out a way to save every dollar, open source solutions sure bring a lot of value to the table.

More Evidence that Search is Hard

2008-11-21T17:30:39-05:00

Following up on a recent post, doing a very basic search engine isn't very hard, but once you dive into the details and want to do anything beyond the simplest implementation, it gets quite complex.

Here is more evidence from the New York Times that describes the difficulties that Netflix is having getting even a 10% improvement in their search results.

Search is Easy, But Good Search is Hard

2008-11-04T13:52:47-05:00

I'm knee-deep in a search-related project. No, I don't mean search engine optimization (SEO) like trying to improve organic rankings on Google or Yahoo. I don't mean search engine marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click advertising such as Google Adwords.

I mean developing a search engine that will help users of a website find relevant content. It's not a trivial problem, but it's interesting. As we develop this out, I intend to post some of our thinking here.

In the meantime, I saw an article about search issues on Facebook today and thought it relevant, especially considering it's election day.