experiential thoughts

Another Legal Team "Solution"

2008-08-26T07:49:27Z

So it turns out that AMC was not behind the MadMen Twitters - or at least in any kind of approved methodology. They've sent Twitter a DMCA complaint about the accounts, and several are already pulled: @don_draper & @peggyolson.
I think that this is an epic FAIL on the part of AMC...the presence of the characters had created an interaction with a selection of fans on Twitter, and more importantly had lead to nothing but positive buzz. Said buzz has likely already impacted search and other marketing mediums outside of twitter. Once again a company seems to have made the knee jerk legal team reaction when they could have brought the fan efforts into the fold. That is assuming that it is a fan effort and not from a member of the content team that failed to inform legal or marketing.

Heads up came from venture beat: http://url.ie/n5w

Extending Characters into Interactive

2008-08-20T01:39:55Z

The team from MadMen is bringing some of the characters to life on Twitter... @don_draper, @joan_holloway, @peggyolson, @pete_campbell & @bertram_cooper have all joined over the last few days...

The interesting thing is not just that the twitters are very well done and in character, but that the order in which characters have joined, and the way they tweet is very much in line with the way that Twitter seems to grow through groups and organizations. Having been the first one at my last agency on Twitter, and then having followed the ebb and flow of usage throughout the organization over time, the SterlingCooper twitter adoption rate seems spot on.

To me, this is a perfect example of how to bring the art of storytelling to life in interactive space. Study the medium you are going to work in, and use it the way that real people use it. You wouldn't shoot footage of someone doing something completely unreal in a TV or Movie Drama, don't force your characters to behave in an unreal way on Twitter or any other social media platform.

And just like in any form of entertainment -- the more attention you pay to the little details, the more real it will become to your audience, and them more engaged they will become. The medium changes what those details should be, but not the fact that there should be details, and that they need to be right.

Links on a Tuesday Afternooon

2008-08-19T05:48:45Z

Anyvite - a replacement for evite without all the crap...and with rsvp from email, im notifications and all sorts of other goodies. To make things more interesting, anyvite seems to pull profile info of unknown users from the web (via google?) filling out your invite with details on attendees as you build it. Hopefully it will start gaining some critical mass and supplanting some of the evite mess.
http://anyvite.com/

outside.in - local news, conversations and happenings. Hmm - will this incorporate enough of a mix of consumer reported items with mainstream news feeds to make it different and valuable? It has serious potential.
http://outside.in

the oddball of the week:
MyBlackBook - ever wanted to analyze your sex life or lack thereof? never been keen on the fact that your little black book could fall into someone's hands? now you can do it online in a secure environment... but if you do, you probably qualify as overly obsessive in more ways than one and should perhaps pursue a career with Vivid or the like in the talent management office.
https://secure.myblackbook.org/

MoFuse and Mobile Versions of Blogs

2008-08-13T01:14:35Z

A neat new service out there, moFuse makes a mobile version of a blog complete with QR code... Not that anyone is necessarily going to want to read my blog on their mobile, but there are plenty of other folks blogs that I already read on my iPhone and that I may switch to reading in MoFuse format.

What's really neat about this is that tools and services like this are exploding, based upon the similar explosion of consumer generated content and the consumption thereof. I'm sure MoFuse will have plenty of competition shortly and also am wondering what their business model will be. But for now, I'm impressed.

Social Systems Usage Mapping

2008-08-01T06:23:17Z

This post owes huge props and credit to David Armano. We had a bit of a twitter conversation the other day around a few of the diagrams he has posted about his use of social media and twitter. You may remember them:
Social Systems
Twitter + Your "Far Outer Circle"

After our conversation I looked over David's diagrams and posts again, and decided to create a usage map template using myself as a guinea pig. The idea behind the hybrid model is that an experience designer or planner could build out a model for each person/profile that they were modeling around. They would then be able to visually present this data in terms of communications priorities and planning as well.

This is a system modeled around my usage. I'm thinking about doing one that includes ALL of my primary media usages, not just social media—the planet rings in non-social media would relate to how that media was shared and with whom. It seems to me that this kind of modeling could really help guide a brand in decision making as to media and creative strategies, tones and types.

Since I've built this upon the inspiration of David, and since I'd love to see what other people do with this model, I'm posting the Illustrator source file as well.

a reminder to brands

2008-07-24T05:44:23Z

A few reminders to brands:

In the long run, you are nothing if you don't produce something of value.

People other than yourselves have to think what you provide is of value. Just because they consume it doesn't mean that it is valued.

This isn't just applicable to your products, but to the rest of that which you produce: Content, Marketing, Interactions and Responses as well.

If you want to know if something is valued, listen and/or ask.

Make several, not one.

2008-07-11T04:39:07Z

Thanks to Tim Brunelle, via Gavin Heaton, via Drew McLellan via Todd Andrik for digging up this Malcolm Gladwell talk from the 2004 TED conference. He's talking about Howard Moskowitz's learnings on consumer preferences.

The thing I really find interesting about all of this is the idea that segmenting potential consumers into multiple groups and working to please each group separately. When applied to experience design, product design, engagement planning, or design & strategy of just about any type, this thinking throws quite a twist into how planning currently proceeds within so much of the business. For example, when planning the IA for a corporate website we tend to strive towards a single sitemap, when we should probably be striving either towards 3 - 5 OR providing for dynamic self-segmentation. The problem with the standard solution set of "section 1 is for purchasing", "section two is for browsing" etc...is that purchasers and browsers exist within each segment and segments are likely to have different requirements for each task. Separating sections by product doesn't do much better, as flavors of products (even colors) are likely to have specific types of people that are most attracted to them.

The more I think about it, the more I think that distributed media is perhaps the real solution to the application of this thinking to the communications space. Just as it doesn't make sense to try and make one coffee for all consumers, it doesn't make sense to make one website or ad campaign or one "integrated" campaign for all consumers. You'll likely end up making people "60% happy".

Why not make many different pieces and aim at making people "78% happy"?

How to be a UX Team of One

2008-07-09T05:10:42Z

Thanks to aaron for passing along this presentation by Leah Hall of Adaptive Path.
Good stuff here, lots of things that you might already know, but a great consolidation and reminder about how to focus your UX/Experience Design chops.

| View | Upload your own

What's the value of your product?

2008-07-01T00:30:58Z

There's been a bit of an uptick in chatter lately around Customer Service and Product Value:

Joseph Jaffe has been tweeting & posting about his experience (miserable) with Delta—aka Delta Skelter
Jon Burg recently wrote about Defining Fair Restitution as it relates to unhappy customers and companies.
Sharon Jaffe @sharonjaffe recently tweeted:
Had 3 positive customer service experiences this week and am blown away. The problem is now I'm worried about next time, CONSISTENCY is key.

It was Jon's set of tweets and related blog entry that got me thinking about how the value of the product as perceived by the customer is related intricately to the end-to-end brand/product/customer experience. The worse the experience, the lower the value of the product. In some ways, this almost justifies the way that Delta treated Jaffe -- they were merely confirming that their product no longer has any value, even though they may pretend that portions of the product do by charging thru the nose for them.

It seems that there are two options for them in a case like this:

they can do what they did and confirm that throughout their organization there is little value given to the brand and product
they can provide extensive restitution and recompense to Jaffe, and do several things to ensure that such an event is less likely to occur again (public apologies, employee training, and new formal policies.)

Unfortunately, I don't think Delta can afford to do the second one under their current structure, as they failed to factor that level of investment into their restructuring plans. But, by failing to make that investment, they have sabotaged their chance to "premiumize" their product and retain the likes of Jaffe as customers. Given that their current product price structure relies upon the Jaffe's of the world to stay in business, this continued policy will likely lead to their eventual demise.

My conclusion from all of this is that fair value and restitution means nothing unless it is representative of the brand, company and product as a whole. Simultaneously, the offered restitution in the case of a grievance can fail to restore a consumer's brand faith even if the restitution is over-compensatory. If the product and/or brand experience continues to fall below the promised standards, the brand faith will evaporate. And in the "Age of Conversation" evaporation of brand faith leads to vocal brand opponents, and a negative conversation.

Open Source Twitter

2008-06-27T08:07:36Z

After seeing a recent group on Facebook looking to develop a community funding movement for Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21624136569 I was inspired to create a similar group calling for the Open Sourcing of the Twitter platform (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18865061654). The idea being that Twitter will become stabler much faster if the base platform is open sourced rather than built with a limited paid group (no matter how much money is raised.)

What does Twitter stand to gain? A stable platform, continued dominance in the space, and the ability to focus on $$ making aspects much faster -- for example corporate implementation and closed networks.

This is a similar concept to a recent open source distributed microblogging platform movement that Joe Cascio (@joec0914) has been leading the charge on. Again, the idea is that a community supported and built open source project focussed on the platform level would be more adaptable and scaleable.

It would be great to see either of these projects take off, because the twitter concept is great, and because I'd love to see twitter succeed and don't think that they need a proprietary base platform to do so.

Enough with the "Integrated" Big Idea

2008-06-25T22:34:50Z

This one's been languishing, so I'm just going to post it in phases.

I've had it with the obsession in the advertising and marketing world with the "Integrated Big Idea". This barely worked when all that agencies produced was TV and/or Radio and a bit of Print. It is completely irrelevant in the land of fragmented media, prosumers and multiplatform browsing. The idea that a single idea will work in all platforms for all consumers not only demeans the user/consumer's intelligence but assumes that the agency is capable of omniscience.

Any decent idea idea may be great for one platform. It may even be great for several -- an idea based around entertaining the potential consumer can work in TV, online, long form, etc... but it will likely require a diverse group of creative people for creation -- I've met very very very few writers that are good at multiple lengths of storytelling. Most of the ones out there are very busy.

Why does the industry insist on forcing ideas to cover multiple platforms? To paraphrase Benjamin Palmer's quote in an Adweek article "you have a different brand when talking to your grandma than when with your girlfriend, why shouldn't a company?" Different people consume different media and have different expectations from their consumption, so why do agencies insist on trying to come up with ideas that cover many types of media? Oh yeah, because we've made a big deal out of the idea of "Integrated".

Let's get over it. Integrated should be about opening lines of communication across all platforms, and being consistent with your offering in those platforms. I would expect a company to talk to me differently than they talk to a 15 year old or a 50 year old. BUT I would expect them to be true to the consistency of their offering and the discussion there of. Don't tell me one thing and someone else something contradictory, because we'll find out and likely both be pissed off. But if you produce a piece of entertainment that doesn't appeal to me, that doesn't mean it will necessarily turn me off, I'll just ignore it. So don't try and make the idea that works for the 15 year old work for me, invite more creatives and come up with something else. Then do them both.

Links for June 16 2008

2008-06-16T03:53:53Z

rick webb on the yhoo-msft-goog techcrunch babble

roughly drafted on apple and sproutcore and rich apps

Evernote a "memory helper"

second brain another "memory helper"

protoshare a collaborative wireframing and prototyping tool

McCain Campaign Using LinkedIn

2008-04-16T01:05:34Z

This is one of the best uses of the native feature set in a social media application I've seen from a campaign yet. John McCain is leveraging the questions feature in LinkedIn to invite participation, ostensibly from an "expert" set of individuals. Given the LinkedIn usage stats, his campaign is onto something. I'm curious to see if they incorporate the comments here into the McCain platform or campaing planning.

I also wonder if either of the Democrat candidates will reach out in the same way, or if the demographics of LinkedIn seem too upper income business user for them to spend their money that way... which would be their loss I think.

The Q/A Page: http://tinyurl.com/5hvb6q

McCain's Profile: http://tinyurl.com/5ny3p7

UPDATE: John McCain does also accept LinkedIn connections (at least when politely worded) and wisely keeps his connections private.

UPDATE 2: HIllary Clinton is also on LinkedIn: http://tinyurl.com/4pfr7z

Bringing Prosumers into the Physical World

2008-04-01T22:21:04Z

An interesting new side to the the Prosumer trend is the development of professional services that allow individuals to design and purchase and/or sell physical goods via the web. In other words, take physical outsourcing and make it available at the individual consumer level. It's pretty straightforward, you design something, put digital working drawings into their templates, upload to the site, they laser cut everything according to your lists and ship you the goods. You can refine and tweak (obviously the more rounds you do of this, the more you pay in cutting and materials) and then keep for yourself or place into their marketplace.

The short view of this is the initial reaction I had "hmmm, maybe I'll finally make that table I sketched out" (although not the one w/ steel legs, since they don't yet work in metals.) Then, after thinking for a minute I started thinking about: what if IKEA or Target contracted with these folks or someone like them? Upload a few templates from their designers, allow users to customize, and make selected custom designs available on their website. If something you customized sold, you'd get either some more store credit or perhaps even some cash. Maybe there's a sales level below which you get credit, above which you become a "registered" designer and can start collecting checks.

What's the risk to them? I don't see much of one except perhaps "taste pollution/dillution" due to poor or "off brand" designs. They can always refuse to "publish" designs that don't meet their standards -- while still allowing the creator to purchase said designs for themselves. Additionally, by giving their consumers the ability to become involved in the production & design process, thereby becoming prosumers, they are allowing for brand engagement and growth. It seems a bit like a win/win to me. I get to not only make my own table, but if it's cool enough, I'll make some cash and be able to tell people that I have a product at IKEA/Target/whereever.

Are there downsides I'm missing?

yet another illustration of what ails agencies

2008-02-29T00:00:56Z

A article in yesterdays NY Times did a great job of illustrating to me the ingrained flaws in the way ad agencies and the people that run them think. Never mind that the article starts out with: "DECADES ago, brewers determined that television commercials were just about the best way to sell beer..." Decades ago? and that should be relevant still now why? But the thing that really pissed me off was at the end of the article:

Even so, Mr. Haven [Jim Haven, co-founder & creative director @ Creature] is demonstrating a fondness for kicking it old school. From all the film shot in Mexico for the online videos, “we cut a couple spots” in 30-second lengths, Mr. Haven said, that could become TV commercials.
“And the music is licensed for air,” he added hopefully.

WHAT??? The agency wasted the client's money by not only licensing the music for broadcast but also cutting 30 second spots? Now I understand that licensing is cheaper when done in batch negotiations, and that adding the extra versions probably didn't add substantial cost either, but the fact remains that both were done for the egos of the agency folks. There appears to be absolutely no reason to have produced TV spots besides the fact that the CD wanted to hope for both splashy TV and an "integrated" campaign to submit to the awards shows. This in my opinion is the kind of mind set that should get agencies fired by clients. It's one thing if the data shows that not only is TV and appropriate medium for reach but also that the audience pays attention and gives a damn about your TV presence. Generally, this is no longer true. But, TV ads keep being produced even when not appropriate at least in part because agencies like making them and the awards shows glamorize them. Don't even get me started on the media component of things...
The article in full can be read here >>