21st Century Enlightenment

A wonderful RSA animated talk that explores our previous endeavours as a society to create human happiness and how, in this day and age, that approach to 'happiness' is no longer valid.

Our previous priorities of driving progress through science & technology, the logic of markets and bureaucracy desperately need to be tempered with 'humanism', a deeper understanding of who we are as people and our ever increasing requirement of empathy for our fellow man in order to live in peace with each other. 

It's a bit academic but absolutely worth watching.

'Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world'

The evolution of an internet meme: Bed Intruder

Meet Antoine Dodson, the latest 'darling' of the interwebs and the originator of the current 'bed intruder' meme sweeping everyone's Facebook, Twitter and Inboxes around the world.

It all began on July 28th when he was interviewed on an NBC-affiliate news program after the attempted rape of his sister in 'the projects' in Lincoln Park.
The video was made available online and quickly caught the attention of many of the viewers due to his flamboyant attitude and generally hilarious commentary.



The video understandably went 'viral' and within a few days was remixed by Youtube mash-up artists and musical group 'The Gregory Brothers' using autotune to quickly become an over night phenomenon:


Another day, another remix. This time from Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore and Jordan Pundik, lead singer of New Found Glory:


After just 3 weeks, Dodson has become a superstar with more than 16 million video views on Youtube and with the autotune 'bed intruder' song at no.35 on the iTunes chart. He was recently interviewed on NBC's Today Show about his new found fame...


Now 4.5 weeks in there are thousands of copy-cat videos on Youtube, you can buy t-shirts and other merchandise and Dodson has set up a website asking for donations to help his family move out of the 'hood', plus he is receiving 50% of all profits on the song sales! A great ending to a horrific beginning...

Oh the power of the interwebs!

My personal favourite:

Gaming mechanics for behaviour change

I've been reading alot lately about gaming mechanics and their effect on influencing and changing our behaviour both consciously and subconsciously.

Gaming is a part of all of our lives whether we realise it or not but many people's classification of of it is very narrow. They assume that video game players such as those who play 'World Of Warcraft' are 'gamers' but if you've ever used a rewards card (e.g. buy 5 coffees get the 6th free) then that makes you a gamer too, you've participated in an activity that works based on game mechanics.

Below is a great talk by Seth Priebatsch who runs SCVNGR, a mobile start-up who's aim is to build a 'game layer' on top of the world.
He argues that for the last decade we've all been focused on Social Networking and making connections but that the framework for doing this has now come to fruition and needs little to no tweaking, therefore our Social Networking phase is done and dusted.
The next phase which will develop over the next decade is 'Game Mechanics' which is all about influencing and changing our behaviour by placing a gaming layer over our everyday realities. It may seem far fetched to think that we'll all become 'gamers' but if we widen our definition of 'gaming' to encompass more than just traditional video games then it doesn't seem quite as implausible, it starts to seem entirely possible.

Seth discussed 4 key game mechanics that influence our behaviours and how we've already been exposed to most of these mechanics already:

1. The 'Appointment' Dynamic: A dynamic in which to succeed, one must return at a predefined time to take a predetermined action
2. The 'Influence & Status' Dynamic: The ability of one player to modify the behaviour and actions of another player via social pressure
3. The 'Progression' Dynamic: A dynamic in which success is granularly displayed and measured through the process of completing itemised tasks
4. The 'Communal Discovery' Dynamic: wherein an entire community is rallied to work together to solve a challenge

Applications such as Foursquare, social games such as Farmville and feedback loops such as Nike+ are just the beginning...
Check out his talk below, well worth watching:

It's about the product, not the marketing...

Quote of the day: Jeff Bezos (Amazon) to Charlie Rose (US interviewer) :

"Before if you were making a product, the right business strategy was to put 70% of your attention, energy, and dollars into shouting about a product, and 30% into making a great product. So you could win with a mediocre product, if you were a good enough marketer. That is getting harder to do. The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies...the individual is empowered... The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. If I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other."

Founder of 4Chan - TED 2010 Talk

Chris 'moot' Poole, the founder of 4chan, a controversial, uncensored online imageboard, describes its subculture, some of the Internet "memes" it has launched, and the incident in which its users managed a very public, precision hack of a mainstream media website, as well as the good outcomes they have achieved such as the amazing story of Dusty the cat...

The talk also raises questions about the power and price of anonymity and the fact that 4Chan is endangered due to social networks and the call for persistent identity online.

The illusion of knowledge

Clay Shirky's cognitive surplus or Nicholas Carr's brain re-wiring?
The Internet as a positive impact on human development or a negative one?

The debate rages on and there are those firmly encamped in each corner and those that believe both are true and intertwined (i.e. me)

I just came across an article in the LA Times which is well worth a read entitled:
Digital alarmists are wrong: Google is not making us stupid, PowerPoint is not destroying literature, and the Internet is not really changing our brains.

In it, the author claims that there is no specific evidence to support the theories of Nicholas Carr and that brain wiring is dependent on genetic predispositions which a child is already in possession of long before they discover Facebook and the Internet. The article tends to support Clay Shirky's 'cognitive surplus' direction that the Internet gives us access to each other and therefore the collective brain which is far more intelligent than any individual human being could be which is of course very true...

However, one thought that seemed to vaguely resemble Carr's argument around the negative impact of all of our hours spent online, was the notion of the 'illusion of knowledge':

'Although the case that technology increases our intelligence is at least as plausible as the gloomy idea that it is changing our brains for the worse, there are real downsides to the instant availability of torrents of information. The danger comes not from the information itself, or from how it could rewire our brains, but from the way we think about our own knowledge and abilities. As the psychologists Leon Rozenblit and Frank Keil discovered, people tend to suffer from an illusion of knowledge: a tendency to mistake surface-level familiarity with deep understanding. As more information becomes readily available, that sense of familiarity grows and grows, and with it the illusion of knowledge. On-demand access to reams of data can also trick us into mistaking knowledge we could obtain quickly for knowledge we already have and can act upon. And if the illusion leads us to neglect the acquisition of true knowledge, we as individuals could become dumber as a result.'

The idea that the internet is making us think we are smarter is entirely possible when the answers to billions of questions are at our finger tips and can be displayed on our screen within seconds. Why therefore would anyone need to do a degree to learn the methods of rocket scientists when they can find it online (of course you wouldn't call yourself a rocket scientist unless you had an actual degree but you could think you knew enough about it)? It's a significant danger that the next generation will be facing when it comes to their education and vocational training...

Read the rest of the article here

Starbucks Social Strategy Keynote Presentation

At the recent Social Influence conference in the UK, Alexandra Wheeler, digital director of Starbucks shares some insights, actions and philosophies that Starbucks has adhered to in order to be one of the most successful brands in the social web space to date.

Starbucks are the largest brand on Facebook with over 10 million followers, they are also number one on Twitter...



Some of the key notes:

• Social is about relationships, not marketing
• Relationships in real life have many dimensions so too should relationships within the social space; such as fun, functionality and social responsibility - adding all of these dimensions and more means you have many ways to curate and create content
• Ensuring 'authenticity' can be easily translated to 'be relevant to your brand and what it stands for' (i.e. don't try to own a space or topic that doesn't fit)
• 'Don't outsource your voice' - don't let your agencies do the talking for you, keep it in house
• Social should always fit within a larger digital strategy which should, in turn, be wrapped into a larger integrated strategy
• Don't get fixated on the number of fans or followers, it's about the idea itself and the resulting opportunity to build new relationships
• 'Build a coalition' - aka - you need to be best friends with legal, marketing, product, partners (franchisees) & technology and they need to understand why engaging with customers in this way is valuable, if you do this you can make some special things happen (i.e Starbucks made it possible to donate to the Haitian crisis through stores within 48 hours of the disaster happening thanks to all departments working together)
• Co-creating the brand experience in partnership with customers leads to infallible advocacy (My Starbucks Idea), and it's not enough just to listen, you need to act (over 100 ideas implemented so far)
• Starbucks digital see themselves as 'content archeologists' but in addition to finding great content they've also become good at saying 'no'. Many people in the organisation say 'we want you to tweet this or post that' but Starbucks digital always ensure that unless it's adding value or creating meaning in that environment then it doesn't go up online. However, they say 'no' in a way that makes the other departments want to then give them something of value and of meaning for their community
• She show's the 'one song, one vision, 156 countries' video which they created to support their relationship with RED and world AIDS day which is amazing
• Opening up new social channels such as Twitter needs to be done with solid consideration of the use of that channel. Starbucks opened Twitter up for their much love Frappucino to help with the discussion about how to customise your drink and to generally tap into the many conversations already happening about that particular product
• However, social isn't just about Facebook or Twitter, it's about looking for those relevant extensions and experiences that can be easily built based on a passionate community (content creation, video mashups, mobile, personalisation)
• Their latest foray has been into looking at the connection between social and mobile with focus on location based ideas, such as the partnership with Foursquare and the creation of a badge and 'mayor' deals, this is all about rewarding loyal customers
• Integrate across the organisation, such as linking in Facebook feedback with that from In Store and the call centre to provide a holistic view of what customers want
• It's great to create new relationships and go after new customers but in the end you must always remember to love your existing customers and communities
• Have fun with your brand and don't take yourself too seriously