Photo
February 25, 2012
The Mobile Cathedral: Build it like Gaudi. #MWC #MWC12 On my wanders through Barcelona today, I was struck by how Gaudi’s magnum opus, the Sagrada Família, a synthesis of his architectural evolution, symbolizes the state of mobile technology (for those of you struggling with the connection between Barcelona and mobile, the Mobile World Congress 2012 kicks off here tomorrow). Great cathedrals are completed over centuries, by the hands of many, many people. And that’s what we are building in the digital world—a mobile cathedral, with every app serving as a tiny hand-crafted detail in a much grander creation. The state of mobile looks very much like Sagrada Familia does today, a grand creation, functional, but still very much under construction. At first I was disappointed to see all the cranes, but seeing something great being built is even better. Imagine seeing how the pyramids were constructed? Or Rome’s Colosseum? Or Stone Henge? Likewise, we are witnessing the greatest digital architectural wonder ever conceived by man. It’s a mad project with no single architect having control over it. The GSMA who organize the Congress attempt to provide frameworks for the mutual benefit of everyone involved in mobile, but there are always rogue agents.  Much of what the GSMA has promised over the years has yet to come true. But after seeing Sagrada Família surround by cranes today, I’m cool with that. Instead of going into the congress with the attitude of demanding to know “where is the mobile future you promised me already!?!”, I’m now going in thinking “wow, I’m witnessing history being made. Just imagine what this will look like when it’s finished.” Stay tuned for more stories about the little details that are making the Mobile Cathedral a work of art. I’ll be posting stuff here all week. 

The Mobile Cathedral: Build it like Gaudi. #MWC #MWC12

On my wanders through Barcelona today, I was struck by how Gaudi’s magnum opus, the Sagrada Família, a synthesis of his architectural evolution, symbolizes the state of mobile technology (for those of you struggling with the connection between Barcelona and mobile, the Mobile World Congress 2012 kicks off here tomorrow).

Great cathedrals are completed over centuries, by the hands of many, many people. And that’s what we are building in the digital world—a mobile cathedral, with every app serving as a tiny hand-crafted detail in a much grander creation.

The state of mobile looks very much like Sagrada Familia does today, a grand creation, functional, but still very much under construction. At first I was disappointed to see all the cranes, but seeing something great being built is even better. Imagine seeing how the pyramids were constructed? Or Rome’s Colosseum? Or Stone Henge?

Likewise, we are witnessing the greatest digital architectural wonder ever conceived by man. It’s a mad project with no single architect having control over it. The GSMA who organize the Congress attempt to provide frameworks for the mutual benefit of everyone involved in mobile, but there are always rogue agents. 

Much of what the GSMA has promised over the years has yet to come true. But after seeing Sagrada Família surround by cranes today, I’m cool with that. Instead of going into the congress with the attitude of demanding to know “where is the mobile future you promised me already!?!”, I’m now going in thinking “wow, I’m witnessing history being made. Just imagine what this will look like when it’s finished.”

Stay tuned for more stories about the little details that are making the Mobile Cathedral a work of art. I’ll be posting stuff here all week. 

Link
January 20, 2012
The 2015 Digital Marketing Rule Book. Change or Perish.

7 Rules for Digital Marketing Revolutionaries! By Avinash Kaushik

#1 Customer expectations on the web are insane, will get super-insane.

#2 Multiplicity: Competencies, Campaigns, Systems, Everything.

#3 One-trick ponies are going to be a liability.

#4 Attention is the most precious commodity.

#5 Brand destruction is insanely efficient now. Beware!

#6 Being good at the Long Tail matters just as much as the Head.

#7 Glory will come to the precious few who are willing to embarrass themselves.

Bonus: #8 Data is your friend.


Text
January 09, 2012

The Social Network Conundrum: Get Big and Become Uncool, or Stay Small and Never Make Any Money

Today marks my 5 year anniversary on Twitter. Half a decade of tweets, and much has changed. The early days of Twitter were amazing: it was like getting invited to a dinner party of the coolest people in tech. Then the masses showed up (I blame @aplusk).

Facebook has gone through the same pattern. I’ve spoken to Harvard grads who were the first users of “The Facebook” and heard their stories of “it’s not as good as it used to be”.

Michael Arrington has a recent blog post about Facebook that echos that sentiment: 

Nobody Goes To Facebook Anymore. It’s Too Crowded.

Anyhow, Facebook today is so crowded and messy that no one ever goes there anymore. Or at least that’s what I imagine Yogi Berra would say. 

So Facebook, I ask you. Give us the Steven Levy do-over. Or give it a Jack Welch twist and auto suggest we unfriend the 10% of our Facebook friends that we interact with the least once a year. Or both.

I promise, cross my heart and pinky swear, I’ll be more restrained and focused this time. I’ll realize the long term consequences of my more hasty why the hell not click yes decisions, and I won’t repeat my past sin of not saying “no” more often.

Ok, I may repeat past sins. But you can just let me start fresh again next year, right? That wouldn’t be so bad. I could live with that.

Then there is G+, where it looks like history is once again repeating itself, according to Jon Mitchell at RWW:

Google+ Is Going To Mess Up The Internet

Thanks to the Scoble effect, I have 8,000 encirclements on Google+. It creeps me out, because I don’t know why I’m encircled by all these people, and I don’t really get what they’re talking about most of the time. Since I presume it’s because I’m a tech blogger, I am waiting impatiently for the day I can migrate this whole thing over to my RWW Google Apps account and just let Google+ be a work thing.

Google is great for work. Gmail and Google Docs are nice things. Hangout meetings are fun. My work personality is much more measured, flat and bland than my real self, and Google tools are great for expressing that.

Now on the horizon, new networks where we are promised the same cool dinner party feel we loved in the beginning. Path is the current flavor of the month. Let’s see how long that lasts…

Hunter Walk’s blog, Elapsed Time highlights the four reasons that we continue to mess up all our social networking sites:

1) Vanity & Ego
Hunter’s rule: Any communication service which publicly displays a metric serving as a proxy for popularity will cause users to take steps to increase that number. Number of friends on Facebook, number of connections on LinkedIn are two easy examples.

2) Boredom & Pleasure
You fire up Path/Instagram/Facebook/Twitter/whatever and, gasp, there aren’t any new updates from friends. Hmm, that was unrewarding, so you decide to friend some more folks to decrease the chances of shooting blanks. It’s equivalent to random reward cycles in game design - each time you log-in there might be a prize, and it keeps you coming back.

3) Reciprocation & Conflict Avoidance
C’mon, admit it, you’ve followed someone just because they followed you first. And you’re afraid to unfriend/unfollow because you don’t want to have THAT conversation with them. These issues are most prevalent in bidirectional systems such as Facebook but most services have this issue - I’m guilty a few times of DM’ing someone who then reminds me they can’t DM me back because I DON’T FOLLOW THEM. Sheepish “oops.”

4) I Like You But Not Everything About You
Social graph != interest graph. So I friend someone but eventually see noise from them - where noise is defined as “jeez, you really like to post dog photos.” If it’s a particular data source you can block it at the app level (no more castleville invites!) but when it’s just generic media types, you can’t block.

Check out his blog to see his solutions to these problems.

As for me, I’m happy to keep you all for another 5 years.

Photo
December 08, 2011
You used to have to be in an Ivy League University to get on Facebook. Now you have to be on Facebook to get in to an Ivy League University. #infographic 

You used to have to be in an Ivy League University to get on Facebook. Now you have to be on Facebook to get in to an Ivy League University. #infographic 

Link
November 29, 2011
1 note
Asian Insight: What the Klout

We all have online influence, it’s just not always easy to measure it. Many are turning to tools like Klout, only to be confused by what they find…

Charlotte Ingramasianinsight by Charlotte Ingram:

Over my lunch break I decided to check my Klout score, not because I believe that Klout is a credible tool of influence measurement but because I was curious and looking for something to do.

It turns out that I am influential about:

  • Jack Sparrow
  • Hong Kong
  • Dolls

Yup, that’s…

Turns out that Charlotte is a lot more influential than that. So are you.

Each and every one of us has the ability to influence other people. Maybe not mass audiences, but that shouldn’t matter in the network era. We don’t need to measure influence the way newspapers measured circulation, or TV measured viewership.

The network effect of one person influencing a few friends who influence a few friends who influence a few friends and so on means that a single person can cause a chain reaction that they (and many influence measuring tools) are completely unaware of.

We are a long way from having an accurate way of measuring our true influence on the world. What’s for sure, your influence begins with you sharing interesting stuff with people that matter to you. Thanks for sharing, Charlotte!

(Source: asianinsight)

Photo
November 03, 2011
45 notes
smarterplanet: Augmented Reality Pop-Up Stores Near Famous Landmarks @PSFK For a few days during late October, British department store Debenhams launched an augmented reality pop up store service where shoppers can try on outfits near the UK’s tourist attractions. Shoppers with an iPhone or iPad 2 can use their device to scan the scene around 5 famous landmarks to find the store’s selection of party dresses – and once located, they can virtually try them on a picture of themselves, share and even order. Users of the Debenhams app were also given an exclusive 20% discount and could upload their images to Facebook and Twitter to get feedback from their friends and followers. The “virtual stores” popped up at the end of last month in London’s Trafalgar Square, Glasgow’s George Square, Birmingham’s Centenary Square, Manchester’s Albert Square and Cardiff Castle in Walkess. Debenhams.com director Simon Forster says about the project: via PSFK:

smarterplanet:

Augmented Reality Pop-Up Stores Near Famous Landmarks @PSFK

For a few days during late October, British department store Debenhams launched an augmented reality pop up store service where shoppers can try on outfits near the UK’s tourist attractions. Shoppers with an iPhone or iPad 2 can use their device to scan the scene around 5 famous landmarks to find the store’s selection of party dresses – and once located, they can virtually try them on a picture of themselves, share and even order. Users of the Debenhams app were also given an exclusive 20% discount and could upload their images to Facebook and Twitter to get feedback from their friends and followers.

The “virtual stores” popped up at the end of last month in London’s Trafalgar Square, Glasgow’s George Square, Birmingham’s Centenary Square, Manchester’s Albert Square and Cardiff Castle in Walkess. Debenhams.com director Simon Forster says about the project:


via PSFK:
Link
November 03, 2011
Under the Influence of Story

The first stories that influence us are our own stories of identity.

Link
October 14, 2011
3 notes
Social Media Policies: Is Your Procrastination Putting Your Company at Risk?

The next time someone asks me to justify social media in terms of ROI, I’m going to ask them how they are measuring their Loss on Lack of Investment (LOLOI?)… 

businesslaw:

“As we know, the (communication) revolution will be more than ‘televised’ because it is posted, liked, blogged, tweeted and linked, anytime, anywhere.” (Social Media and the Workplace: Virtual Worlds and Legal Realities in 2011 by Luce Forward)

Think your employees aren’t on Twitter…

(Source: jdsupra-biznews)

Photo
September 29, 2011
1 note
Facebook may someday get you more than air miles.

Facebook may someday get you more than air miles.

Tags: loyal fans

Link
September 24, 2011
The (Re)Humanization of Business

Social media succeeded by abandoning the traditional mindset and assumptions of our machine-based organizations, and instead embracing ideas that are much more consistent with what it means to be human. In social media, relationships matter. So does trust. So do things like meaning, humor, transparency, authenticity, and creativity. Social media is built on the 

principle that control is a thing of the past, and that the results you get are not always the ones that you were seeking when you started. Those principles are much more aligned with what it means to be human, than with what makes machines work well. That is fundamentally why 



social media has been so explosive. We like being human. We can’t help it. When we get access to something that lets more of our humanity come out, we are drawn to it. That is why we are flocking to social media.