Andrew McAfee – Enterprise 2.0: The State of the Meme

June 19, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Andrew McAfee followed David Weinberger in the keynote session at Enterprise 2.0.

McAfee coined the term Enterprise 2.0 a little over a year ago. In his presentation, he looked at the changes in the last year.

How are we doing with awareness?

Since the term was coined a little over a year ago, it has spread rapidly, finding it’s way into mainstream media and conferences like this.

The concept of social software is beginning to penetrate into corporations. This is accompanied by an awareness of the benefits of network effects as the usage increases.

Enterprises also are beginning to acknowledge the merits of freeform authoring. Users will create that which is useful to them. So, we must come to grips with the need to “get out the way” and let them do this.

One of the huge leaps forward in Enterprise 2.0 is the realization that the users should also create their own metadata. If we allow this to happen without imposing artificial structures, we will find that the information is organized in ways that reflect the users and their needs.

How about the technologies?

The toolkit is growing and overflowing with freeform, collaborative tools. Massive amounts of new offerings are being offered by both startups and established companies. There will be a winnowing out as users select the best of the set and others fall by the wayside. Messy, but good.

On the other hand, the new applications and platforms are not always as easy to use as they must be. And, the new technologies must take into account existing applications, such as email. Email is ubiquitous and meets a functional need. Enterprise 2.0 applications will be more quickly embraced if they integrate with existing applications like email.
How are we communicating results to decision makers inside organizations? We’re not doing so well with this. Case studies are still relatively rare. To build credibility inside the corporation, it will be necessary to build up a broader set of case studies, benchmarks and stories that describe the success of these tools.

McAfee cautions against attempting to justify the adoption of the tools soley in terms of ROI. Early estimates are likely to be contentious. He instead suggests that the focus should be on telling the story of what they do. This will appeal to decision makers who make their judgments on factors beyond ROI.

He concluded his presentation with a proposal to create a repository of Enterprise 2.0 efforts. This could be generated by the Enterprise 2.0 community through a Wiki. And it will provide a map of the evolution of Enterprise 2.0 that advocates and decision makers can draw on.

David Weinberger – Everything is Miscellaneous

June 19, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

David Weinberger opened Enterprise 2.0 this morning with a rapid fire overview of the thinking he lays out in his new book, Everything is Miscellaneous.

In the face of the rapid change that we have been experiencing, why aren’t we drowning in the ocean of information. The answer lies in the metadata.

The real world requires that we order things within finite, defined spaces. Think of the front page of the newspaper. Power and authority is conveyed upon the person who commands the ability to determine what goes into these spaces.

We have imported the concept of physical limitations of organization into digitization. But the digital in fact frees us from these limitations.

Key thoughts:

Leaf as many branches as you can. Information can be tagged in unlimited ways.
Messiness is a virtue. All sorts of connections that make sense to individuals are possible and good. There is no need to force these relationships and connections into a predetermined pattern.
There is no difference between clean data and metadata. When you go online, this is not so much the case anymore. With Search that draws connections between data, everything is metadata.
Unowned order: Users own the organization of the data that is meaningful and useful to them.
Take all of these things together and the user can draw meaning from data to meet their immediate needs and context. Everything is Miscellaneous.

In this new environment, authority is distributed and attributed by the community. Authority embraces fallibility. Contrast the self identification in Wikipedia of entries that require further attention or editing by the community with the self declared indisputable authority of traditional media like the New York Times or the Encyclopedia Britannica. By acknowledging fallibility, by acknowledging mistakes, authority is actually enhanced.

Coca Cola Sprite Yard – Social Network or Exploitation?

June 14, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Is it just me? Or is there something seriously “wrong” with this?

Forget Facebook, Everyone is Meeting in the Yard

Forget Myspace and Facebook. That’s old news. Now, there is Sprite’s exclusive network called the Sprite Yard.As a new way of connecting with customers, Coca-Cola expects the Sprite Yard to set new benchmarks for consumer brand engagement through the use of a mobile platform. Within the Sprite Yard, users can create a tag name, a profile, send “shouts” to friends and even post “scribbles” to a discussion board.

Measurement metrics have been built in so Coca-Cola can track, in real-time, which features consumers are using most to the direct impact on beverage sales. It enables Coca-Cola to react very quickly to what their market wants.

What made them “go mobile” with the Sprite Yard? They saw the opportunity to leverage mobile’s potential for viral distribution and to react to the consumers’ desire for constant connectivity.

With so many people actively online, organizations want to create their own groups and communities to ask their customers directly what they think, feel and want so that companies can make better corporate decisions.

…

Now, I worry here that I’m being mean spirited. And I worry that by pointing out the obvious, I’ll hurt the people behind it. And heck. I live in a glass house, as a public relations practitioner who is exploring social media and whose firm may also make mistakes.

But having said that, this just screams wrong, wrong, wrong!

What jumps out at me?

Right off the top, hyperbole. “Forget Facebook?” The fastest growing social networking space that has turned itself into a platform? Come on! Good communication must be based in reality. Why not just tell me to forget Rocket Richard. Forget Hank Aaron. Forget Joe Namath. Cause, heck, Fred Money-to-Burn has come along and promises that he’ll be bigger than them all. That’s just bald hype. Walk the talk before you make the claim.
“Coca-Cola expects the Sprite Yard to set new benchmarks for consumer brand engagement through the use of a mobile platform.” Whoah. Those are high, high, high expectations that have just been set. Let’s check back in three months from now and see whether I’ll have to eat my hat (or drink my Coca Cola.) Never ever tell them that you’re going to hit the ball over the fence on your first pitch. (Unless your name is Babe Ruth. And, oops. It didn’t work out too well for him either…)
“Measurement metrics have been built in so Coca-Cola can track, in real-time, which features consumers are using most to the direct impact on beverage sales.” Let me get this straight. You’ve compared yourself to social networks that let me connect with my friends. But the great benefit of this network is that Coca Cola will be able to measure, in real time (no overnight delays for us folks) which features sell the most soda. Wow! I want to participate -not (to quote a phrase as hackneyed as this campaign.)

Bottom line. The foundation of social media is the spirit of generosity. Is Coca Cola being generous here? Or has someone been just a little too candid about how we are all just data points in Coca Cola’s marketing analysis machine?

Is this what social media and social software are leading to? is this the new normal? Or is there another way?

Air Canada wants to charge me to give back a free ticket

June 6, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Here’s a truly weird customer relations experience.

Earlier this year, Air Canada offered a free ticket to the United States to anyone who bought one of their Rapidair Flight Passes. Because I fly between Toronto and Ottawa virtually every week, I use flight passes. So, I qualified for the free ticket offer.

I used the free ticket to book a trip to San Francisco for the second week in June. But earlier today I discovered that I have to be in Ottawa for an important meeting. So, I won’t be able to take the trip.

The only restriction on the ticket was that the travel had to occur prior to June 30. I realized that I could not reschedule the trip to occur before then. I’d have to simply give up the chance to use the free ticket.

So, I went onto the Air Canada Website to cancel the trip.

Now, here’s where the weirdness starts. I sign onto the Website, locate my reservation and click the Cancel button. Up pops a screen that informs me that I must pay $80 to cancel this reservation. That’s odd. Pay $80 to cancel something that was free in the first place? Hmmm.

So, I call the Air Canada reservation centre. I explain to the ticket agent that I wish to cancel the reservation. OK she says. That’ll cost you $40 each way in order to recredit the ticket to my account for future use. I explain that the free ticket has an expiry date of June 30 and that I won’t be able to use it. I don’t need it credited. I just want to cancel my reservation so that Air Canada can resell the seat.

Sorry, she says. If you don’t pay us to cancel the seat, your reservation will stay active and lapse when the flight departs.

Honestly. I’m not making this up.

Air Canada will forego the opportunity to sell a seat on an Ottawa to San Francisco flight unless I pay them $80 to cancel a free ticket. Wow!

Does this make sense to you?

Weekend Project: Discover 3 great new marketing blogs on the Power 150

June 3, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Power 150

One of the great joys of reading blogs is the discovery of new voices with a different perspective on issues I care about.

Here’s an easy way to find some great marketing blogs that have already earned a following, but may be new to you. I call it Power 150 Roulette.

Todd Andrlik has compiled a Power 150 list of the “top” marketing blogs. Every weekend, I randomly pick three numbers between 1 and 150 and then I visit the blogs that are at these numbers on Todd’s Power 150 list.

For example, this weekend, I picked 30, 67 and 136. This led me to

The Viral Garden, where Mack Collier writes with insight and intelligence. He’s started a new corporate blog check up series. First up: Kodak.

adliterate, Richard Huntington’s perspective from the U.K. on “the future of advertising and the marketing communications industries, the impact of technology on communications and the nature of potent brands.” A mouthful. But worth visiting. A couple recent posts denounced brainstorms as the source of mediocre ideas and a reflection on the nature of advertising as a trade (spoiler: it’s not a profession and forget about training; learn on the job.) Provocative stuff.

Optimize & Prophecize, a take on Internet marketing from SEO veteran Jonathan Mendez. His post on Optimizing Social Media Landing Pages spoke directly to one of my current interests. I’m hooked.

If you haven’t taken a look at the Power 150, click over now. I discovered some great new blogs on Todd’s list. And I’ve subscribed to make many of them part of my daily reading.

Disclosure: I found the Power 150 and Todd’s blog when Pro PR showed up at number 111 on the current version of the list. Thanks Todd for creating this resource. I don’t know whether I’ll rank on future iterations of the list, but it was a pretty neat thing to find myself there at least for a little while.

Blogger and podcaster insurance

June 2, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

The news that Michael Geist is being sued for a link on his blog got me to wondering at my own exposure.

Shel Holtz conducted an interview for the FIR podcast with Karl Susman who provides blogger and podcaster insurance in the United States. Susman indicated that $2 million in liability coverage runs about $350 annually.

Do you know of any insurance providers who offer policies for bloggers and podcasters in Canada?

Katie Paine's Shankhassick Farm saved from foreclosure

June 1, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

Last week, word went round the blogosphere about Katie Paine’s efforts to save Shankhassick Farm from being auctioned off by the bank.

Well good news. Katie has just posted that Shankhassick has been saved:

As of 4:05pm today the taxes were paid and the bank was notified. I am SO grateful to everyone who helped. Thank you all. It’s been a humbling experience. Let no one ever think that Shankhassick Farm is just a piece of land and some houses. You all made it very clear that this farm is a very special place — a refuge, a source of inspiration and creativity and when that much good will and Karma comes at you, anything is possible — including raising over $125,000 in less than two weeks.

A real example of community and generosity.

Congratulations Katie.

Is Apple or EMI gouging Canadians on the cost of DRM free upgrades for iTunes Plus?

June 1, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

I just received an email from iTunes telling me that the new iTunes Plus DRM free version of music from EMI is available in Canada. The email concludes with the sentence that, “Even better yet, you can also upgrade existing EMI songs in your iTunes collection for just $.40 per song.”

$.40 per song? Where’d that come from? $.40 per song is a 33% premium over the the $.30 per song that upgrades cost U.S. iTunes subscribers. That’s a big, big difference.

How can this be justified? Not on the basis of the exchange rate. When I checked the Bank of Canada currency converter just now, it showed that $.30 U.S. is worth $.32 Canadian. So, that means that either Apple or EMI is pocketing a windfall $.08 for every iTunes track upgraded to the DRM free iTUnes Plus version.

I applauded Steve Jobs’ announcement that iTunes would take some initial steps forward into the world of DRM free music. That’s a good thing.

But charging one person an extra $.08 on exactly the same purchase another gets for $.08 less? That doesn’t make sense to me.

Seems like a marketing faux pas to me. I wonder if it will bounce back on either Apple or EMI.

What do you think?

The Future of Entertainment – the people formerly known as the audience

May 30, 2007 • Joseph Thornley • No Tags

I ended my mesh day with a panel of McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves, Amber MacArthur and Ethan Kaplan moderated by Jian Gomeshi.

Jian Gomeshi: Two Sams come to mind. Sam Sniderman or Sam the Record Man as we know him. It was announced this morning that the flagship store of the once iconic Sam the Record Man store will be closing. The end of an era. Things have changed.

So, what’s the biggest change in the last 12 months that will affect the future of entertainment.

Ethan Kaplan: A new focus on the fact that things will not return to the way things were in the pre Napster era. There’s a renewed effort to create a new avenue for the music industry. Different value propositions must be created that don’t try to undermine the direct relationship between the fans and access to the music.

Amber MacArthur: Last year, she was at this conference as a broadcaster at G4Tech TV. This year as a blogger and podcaster at CITY TV. This is an indicator of the trend of movement from the traditional broadcast media to the new online media.

Jain Gomeshi: How valid is the notion that the audience of today is more actively engaged than the audience of yesterday? Are people investing more or less now in their entertainment?

Amber MacArthur: People are dividing their attention. So the length of video clips is decreasing. They also seem to jump ship between things quickly. Facebook is big today. But will it still be big in six months?

Ethan Kaplan: Passive acceptance and passive consumption was a fiction that was maintained by the major media companies. It was driven by hubris. And the notion has collapsed on itself. What’s really happened is that content has become agnostic to representation. There’s a lack of differentiation between the mode of the content. Now fans are more focused on the agent that is originating the content.

Jian Gomeshi: Does the ease of acquiring art, music devalue it or make it more disposable?

Amber MacArthur: Content is available to a global audience. You should try to get your content in front of as many people as you can around the world and then figure out how to derive revenue from it.

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: The social network that have grown up around artists show that fans really value those artists.

Jian Gomeshi: How do you get people attached to an artist?

Ethan Kaplan: We’re to the point where we have to embrace the notion that the duplicability of the content and the ready availability of the content has made it necessary to think creatively about how to market the content. Taking Michael Buble, for example. You must treat him as a personality and then market the record as an extension of the personality. The campaign began six months beforehand. No flash Websites. Have a blog friendly Website. Then begin to publish creative elements, such as photos, in the lead up to the release of the record. Treat the release of the record as an event.

Jian Gomeshi: How do you differentiate small, new artists?

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: Bloggers have shown that one person with a computer can build an audience. Use the viral tools to assemble an audience anywhere that people gather. Artists can build an audience by using the social networking sites.

Jian Gomeshi: Have the responsiblities of audiences changed?

Amber MacArthur: Artists must now know their audiences likes and anticipate them and respond to them. Tom Green has reinvented himself by actively engaging directly with his audience through his blog and his nightly online program.

Michael Geist: What about Digital Rights Management software?

Ethan Kaplan: DRM is a very small piece of a larger problem, the fact that what you have today is the availablity of both for free and for pay content. The larger issue is how to make sure that artists are compensated along a long value chain that includes any reproduction device.

McLean Mashingaidze-Greaves: The DRM genie is out of the bottle. What’s going on is a little like the war on drugs.