When software and design are better than advertising

Skype in the Classroom from Made By Many on Vimeo.

I’m a pretty big fan of Made by Many. As the London based company of renegades likes to say, they “make new things out of the Internet.” That alone is reason to like them.

Note that MxM is not an ad agency. Nor are they a digital shop in the vein of an R/GA or Big Spaceship. They’re somewhere in between a software company, an IDEO-like design shop and a marketing firm.

If you believe as I do that a big part of our (the advertising industry) future will also be about making new things, there’s much you can learn from this small, but growing company: everything from their space (totally open with people sitting at benches to foster collaboration); to the kinds of people they hire (developers); to their willingness to share so much of what they know (read their blog); to their commitment to learning (they once took 30-plus employees – 95 percent of the company — to SxSW for a week).

They also embrace a very different approach to making what they make than a typical agency would practice. Instead of employing a linear process that sees a project migrate from research to strategy to creative to approval to production to media buy, they apply lean start-up techniques — testing, learning and iterating their way to a solution that they know will work by the time it’s ready for prime time.

Consider their relatively recent Skype in the Classroom project, which just won a mention at the Core 77 design awards. (Open IDEO won.)  We all know what a typical ad agency would do if challenged by Skype to get more teachers to use its video conferencing service. They’d create an ad campaign espousing the virtues of the service and run it in trades targeted at educators.

But if you’re a software company (or a design thinker) it never dawns on you to create an ad campaign.  Instead you focus on building something worthy of being advertised. Which is exactly what Made by Many did.  Sure they started with the premise that more teachers need to learn about Skype and how or why to use it. But they quickly discovered, through lots of interviews with teachers, that familiarity wasn’t the problem at all. Teachers already knew and loved the service. They simply needed more people to Skype with. So what did Made by Many make?  A directory that invited teachers to post the subjects, topics or projects around which they wanted to connect with other teachers or experts.

Skype in the classroom brings together a community of people and information to save teachers time and help them make the most of Skype and the international teaching community.

Teachers could post what they were working on or looking for. Then from anywhere and everywhere around the world other teachers with similar projects or useful expertise could identify opportunities for sharing and collaborating.  Taking advantage of the network effect – the more users use it the more people are attracted and excited to join – the project quickly grew to over 14,000 teachers and nearly 700 projects.

It’s innovation, crowdsourcing and the power of social media all rolled into one very cool idea that spread quickly with little more than word of mouth and some well deserved press coverage.

To me, projects like this are what we should all want to create. When you think about the potential of Skype in the Classroom – connecting teachers and students in the U.S. with their counterparts in the Middle East for example, or teaching kids about each other’s respective cultures – it has huge implications for learning and even international relations.

We might also want to learn how to make conceive and execute ideas like this. Many of us get our inspiration from the same places over and over again – other ad agencies, recent campaigns, award shows. But expand the list of places you go for inspiration and take the time to learn some of the new ways of creating, and who knows, maybe you’ll be competing against IDEO for design awards. And impressing the hell out of your clients in the process.

Google+ and the benefit of time

Jaron Lanier must be rolling his eyes. Google + has been out all of two weeks and we have already seen paid seminars on how to use it; thousands, if not millions, of blog posts espousing its virtues and condemning its shortcomings; gushing praise for circles and the ability to organize our friends and acquaintances; and now, after less than a month, when most of us haven’t even figured out how to use our circles efficiently comes the latest assessment – circle fatigue. Really?  To call circles “the dark side of Google +” does seem a little over the top. (Read the comments.)

Maybe we should all take a breath, restrain our need to decide/conclude/declare in realtime, before we actually know anything, and see where this all goes. Ever think that maybe it’s still too soon to tell?

We have no idea whether Google’s momentum – 10 million users in practically no time – will continue.  No way of knowing how long, if ever, it will take to reach Facebook’s volume.

Will Sparks turn out to be as useful a filtering device as we can imagine – feeding us new content based on what we’ve clicked on, liked or interacted with from previous results that it’s added to our stream? If so, will it become one of our favorite features of G+?

In early questions I posed to heavy social users, many were ready to make Google + their de facto platform, but others had no intention of bailing on Twitter.  Is it an either or?  Or might we, over time, find that certain networks play different roles in our desire to connect, share, discover content and organize news and entertainment via the influence and recommendations of our own carefully curated communities. Leading to the question of what role will Google + play?

And all of that’s before we even consider brands and companies. Right now Google has asked companies to stay off until they get the experience right and can select some subset of the 36,000 companies who applied to get on. That will inevitably raise more questions.

Will brands use circles intelligently, organizing small groups of advocates and loyalists in one circle, coupon cutters in another, prospects in a third?

Will Google + afford marketers better interaction and listening than Facebook does, even if the number of +’s are fewer?

What about early reports that the men to women ratio of G+ users was 90:10? Apparently that was a false assessment, but Google’s new site still weighs more in favor of the less influential consumer. Will that change?

Regarding brand interaction, there’s user behavior to consider. With the ability to isolate brands into circles we can easily organize brands by category, by coupons, or by other preferences and have far easier control over a brand’s stream than they might have elsewhere.  Need a new sweater? Click on the circle of all your favorite online retailers to see who’s sending you discounts.

Finally, there’s a lot of talk about SEO results.  Presumably now that Google has put an end to real time search, Google + content will have an advantage.  But we still don’t know, and may never know, how that works.  Right now a link that gets shared publicy has a URL (back to the Google+ post), so presumably it can be searched and found. But what about a link shared with a limited number of circles that’s not public? Does that link even count toward the page rank of the article being shared? And does it matter how influential the person who shared it?

Maybe you know the answers to all of these questions. I don’t. But I do think that for anything to work for us we have to work at it. Which recalls a whole other argument – Douglas Rushkoff’s Program or be Programmed. Having everything laid out for us might be convenient. But control and choice might be better thing. I’m giving it time.

Idea overload via SxSWi

Clockwise from top left: digital code for music; NY Times Editor Jennifer Preston; with the exceptional Cindy Gallop; Austin at night

I’m back today from five days at SxSWi. Unlike the crowd that hangs in the blogger lounge, anxious to peck out a news story about whatever new product or feature or booked gets launched in Austin, I’m usually way to busy to do much more than check-in, post a few updates or share some Instagrams. Hence the hiatus here. So over the next week I’ll try to share some thoughts and reactions from a week of information overload.

SxSW continues to amaze. This year there were 20,000 people, nearly 2000 presenters and hundreds of sessions to consider. Obviously it’s impossible to get through more than a fraction of them.  (Would love to see the data visualization on beers consumed versus sessions attended by each attendee. I’m willing to bet that the higher the former the lower the latter.)

I have a number of things I want to share and write about, but for starters, here are some random thoughts and sound bites.

Journalism’s newest source is Twitter

Reporters for many of the major news outlets, from the New York Times to NPR now rely on Twitter, as much as they do on their own correspondents and traditional sources, for news, especially from the danger zones where on-the-ground reports from citizens can be more timely (if not always reliable.) While it creates all kinds of challenges — verifying reports, protecting the identity of sources — it also shows the incredible power of social media, from text messages and Twitter to camera phones and YouTube. Without it, given all the bureaus that have shut down in recent years, we’d have much less timely information.

In fact, during a session with Jennifer Preston of the New York Times and Andy Carvin of NPR, reports started to circulate via Twitter that Al Jazeera camera man Ali Hassan Al-Jaber had been killed.  In real time, while the conversation went on, Carvin verified sources and informed that room that the reports were, in fact, true.

Scale is not the most important objective

If you’re in the marketing, advertising or social media business, you confront this all the time. Brands want more followers. More likes. More views.  All of which is good but may have far less long term value than building a community via true engagement.  For evidence look no further than Christopher Poole. Moot shared a story of 4Chan’s growth and how it was the community of users whose content and interaction built the web’s largest English image-board. You may have no interest in replicating either the content or the user community, but the idea of fostering and enabling a community that connects people to each other around shared interests should be your real focus. Focus on that and the scale will come.  Game the numbers with a gimmick or quick campaign and you may achieve them, but long-term they might offer less of a return.

Influence is getting more dispersed

I saw one slide at a session on social media data visualization (honest, it’s the only session I went to with SoMe in the title) that was quite telling.  The image compared sources of content (influence) from the Iran green movement in 2009 with the recent uprising in Eqypt.

In Iran there were four or five central nodes of influence: key people whose content was read, re-tweeted and then spread.  But a look at the same chart regarding Eqypt shows a proliferation in nodes of influence, suggesting that today, there are many more individuals whose content is followed and that large communities are comprised not just of individuals but of sub-communities.  No doubt the same effect can be seen across the entire social web.

The lines are blurring faster than ever

We have a tendency to compartmentalize. Retail stores are physical. Websites are where we shop on line. Mobile is that phone in our pocket. But really they are all blurring together. Soon we’ll shop simply by grabbing an image of a garment we see someone wearing. We’ll find it on our smartphone and make a purchase. Or we’ll save it, assemble a digital wardrobe, then send it off to a third site that might shop for us, securing the best deals the web has to offer while we sit back and play some new game.

The gap between technology and user adoption widens

We invent new technologies faster than we embrace them. No real surprise, but as the pace of change accelerates even further, we’ll see the gap widen. Mice will give way to touch; touch to gesture; gesture to bio-signals.  But we won’t embrace any of these with the same speed at which they become available.  Consider your own habits. Even if you’re an early adopter of all things digital, you’re probably finding it harder and harder to keep up.  And I bet you’re not one of the 80,000 people who has a chip implanted in your head, helping you think, get around, or simply remember stuff.

We can all learn from start-ups

Admittedly I didn’t get to the lean-start up sessions, a full day program that took place on Saturday.  But everyone I talked to who did attend raved about it and took away valuable lessons about agile, iterating and learning to pivot at lightning speed.

I full expect that the idea of MVP (minimum viable product) will work its way into everything from ad campaigns and digital platforms, to the launching of new divisions or skunk works.

On a related note, Pepsi shared its commitment to try virtually every new social platform that comes along, experimenting with how they work and exploring their potential value. More importantly the marketing giant wants to work with and learn from every one of the startups that launches a new platform or app in hopes of importing the techniques and processes that enable young start-ups to iterate so quickly.  Who says you can’ teach an old dog (slow) to learn new tricks (how to be fast.)

More to come in a day or two.  Hope this gives you something to think about.

Instagram leverages an illusion of creativity

Ordinary photo on the left; arted up with Instgram on the right

By now the rapid ascent of Instagram is familiar to everyone: from zero to one million users in three months; from one to two million in another six weeks.

I signed up when it first came out but didn’t use it much as none of my social friends were there yet. Now it seems everyone’s posting. Even though I’ve only followed a select group of folks (it’s a lot of images to look at if you follow hundreds) I have in my feed their breakfast, lunch, dinner, meetings, architecture, furniture, reading materials and whatever other everyday tsotskes they find across the table, out the window or overhead. And I’ve been doing the same. Publishing everything from chairlift views to close ups of appetizers. And why not? It’s a fast, fun and easy way to share where you are, what you’re doing and whom you’re doing it with.

But it strikes me that the real reason Instagram has taken off is that it provides us with the illusion of creativity. The brilliance of Instagram is that it lets us snap a most ordinary photograph and instantly “art it up” with one of 15 filters. It gives us the sense that we are better photographers than we actually are. We don’t have to do anything other than point our iPhone at the most mundane of subjects. Early Bird, Hefe, Sutor, Toaster and their fellow filters do the rest. We think that we are creating, expressing, being clever. But as Douglas Rushkoff might remind us, we’re simply being programmed. Told by this app what constitutes an image.  Just as we’ve been told by Facebook what defines an online profile, a digital friend, or an endorsement. Just as we’ve been told by Tumblr the new format for a blog post.

Bad photo shot from the chairlift; better photo thanks to Instagram

Don’t get me wrong. I really like Instagram. Often an image is a much better way to share an idea, a place or an enviable experience than is a check-in or 140 character soundbite. But we should remain cautious of just how much we let all the new social apps and platforms dictate what we produce and how we communicate.

Instagram or its competitor Picplz may or may not be here to stay. Twitter could take them both out. But the idea of posting images in the stream, in a more socially conducive manner than Flickr or even Facebook allows, is here to stay. Which means you may have to endure (or not) a little visual clutter coming from my direction. I make no claims to being a photographer, but if you want, you can find me out there as edwardboches. If you’re a better shooter than I, perhaps I’ll follow you back. (Smile.)



Assignment: Make America passionate about innovation

It's been a while since the innovation was a national focus

Next month I have the honor of heading off to the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication where I’ve been invited to be an executive in residence.  During my three days in Eugene, I’ll give a keynote, meet with faculty, work with students in a few classes and perhaps participate in a TedX conference.

But what I’m most excited about is that I get to come up with an assignment that students will work on in anticipation of my arrival. So here it is:

Assignment: Make America passionate once again about Innovation.

Not since the days of Sputnik and the genesis of the space program has innovation truly been celebrated by an entire nation. Sure we have Silicon Valley and Steve Jobs. But that addresses but a sliver of the problems and challenges that science, technology and innovation might actually solve – energy, health care, potable water, education, heck even longer lasting batteries for our iPhones.

Perhaps more compelling — despite a flurry of new gadgets, hybrid cars, and the Internet of everything – are facts like these:

• Most experts believe the United States is fewer than 10 years away from losing its leadership position to China and India.
• Those two nations are rapidly becoming the choice of global companies as they determine where to locate their R&D facilities, thanks to their emphasis on math and science education.
• America continues to see an increase in high school drop out rates, test scores that pale in comparison to other countries, and plummeting school budgets that don’t do much to help. 
• It’s an epidemic at the college level, too. Consider that at UC Irvine, whose research labs detected the harmful CFC gases that deplete the ozone layer, the reputable program has lost $70 million for research, faculty, and classes.
• NASA’s budget is less than one percent of the total defense budget.
• Wall Street’s emphasis on quarterly profits encourages chipping away at R&D budgets in order to help bottom lines.

Last week, appearing on Tom Ashbrook’s On Point, MIT President Susan Hockfield suggested that if we really want more scientific and technological breakthroughs — the kind that solve big problems (energy, education, health), foster social mobility and spur economic growth — we need a national passion around innovation.  “The nation has to fall in love again with science and technology,” Hockfield insists.  “We have the have basic elements, but we no longer have the focus.”

So what if we take innovation and make it cool. Turn it into a cause. Get everyone behind it — kids, parents, educators, small businesses, big businesses, government officials, taxpayers.

What if we created this movement by using some of the innovations we have seen in the last few years – Skype, Twitter, YouTube?  Or used emerging marketing techniques to do it – gaming dynamics, crowdfunding, and user-generated content?  Perhaps we should even invent new products and services as part of the campaign to demonstrate the challenge and the thrill of inventing?

I’m hoping that the students come up with something that makes the idea of innovation viral. Something we root for like a national sports team. Or at least a campaign that extends the conversation beyond the halls of MIT, the broadcasts of NPR and the offices of venture capitalists.

What do you think?  Any ideas, links, leads, suggestions to help the journalism and communication students at the University of Oregon get started?