Over the River

When I talk with people, clients, companies, organizations, etc. I’m amazed by how much content - often awesome content - is just sitting around unused. Old brand materials (ads, packaging, signage), physical artifacts (products, packaging, prototypes) and information (historical data, b-roll, photographs) that could be doing a world of good in the light of day are simply being ignored.

It’s time for there to be a good old fashion content harvest. Look around at some of the great content you or your client or your company has on hand and imagine what could be done with it to make it accessible, engaging and exciting to people.

Have examples of every model widget your company has ever produced? Photograph them - show the evolution of the design - and post the photos onto Flickr. Have footage of every CEO speaking at a company event for the past 40 years? Cut it up, mash it up and use it to tell the story of change over that period. Tag it, post it, get it out there. This isn’t hard stuff - it just isn’t always obvious.

“But how will this approach support the current story or key messages?” you might be tempted to ask (although I hope you aren’t). Well, sometimes we get so fixated on telling the immediate story that we forget there are millions of forgotten or untold stories that will spark conversations and build excitement around individuals, brands and companies.

Come on, this stuff isn’t getting any fresher . . .

Technorati Tags: content, brands, marketing, communication

Earlier today a colleague sent out an email to illustrate how teens are using social media differently. A woman he knows (apparently in her teens) lost the numbers on her cell. Her solution for getting them back was to create a Facebook group asking her friends to post their numbers.

While 20 people have joined the group, only three have posted their numbers - just 15 percent. Is the issue concern with privacy? Apathy?

What do you think?

I’ve been asked to get a sense of how the world of social media is feeling about the economy and the potential for a recession. If anyone has thoughts they’d be willing to share of a sense from their own travels and observations I’d appreciate it very much. You can email me or leave comments here.

At last week’s MITX event I badgered the panel about the possibility to payment for content creators on social sites. I was told the question was “naive” and heard from a commenter that there was no way this would happen in for foreseeable future. To his credit, that person did mention that YouTube was doing something like this but he wondered is anything had actually been paid.

Imagine my relief this morning when I saw this article on the BBC.com. Apparently I’m not as naive as some believe and the foreseeable future as arrived!

YouTube users in the UK will be given the chance to make money from the videos they post on the site.

The project is already up and running in the US and is now being extended to other countries, starting in the UK.

In the US some contributors are already earning thousands of dollars each month from their films, according to the video-sharing site.

The amount that is earned will depend on the number and popularity of the videos, it said.

Will this eventually extend beyond YouTube and become standard industry wide? Why not?

I’ve been so busy with my other blogs lately that I haven’t been writing here as much as I ought to - now that the 2008 events are underway I expect that to change.

I went out last night to MITX. The panel was moderated by Larry Weber and featured Tom Arrix of Facebook, Pauline Ores of IBM, Juan Santos or StudioCom, Suzanne Skop of MySpace and Jeff Taylor of Eons. The event drew a good crowd, probably 250 people. It was less the hip social media scene people and more folks that I think were looking for ways to understand what’s happening. (I will say that most of the people in the room raised their hands when asked if they were using Facebook or Myspace.)

In terms of content, I didn’t come away with anything especially new or revealing. It was what has become a fairly familiar conversation - the way people want to receive content is changing so the way marketers communicate with them needs to change as well. Yep, got it.

What made this panel perhaps more interesting was the quality of the panelists - or at least of the companies for whom they worked. This gave me an opportunity to raise an issue that’s been bothering me lately. Let me explain the issue and then get into the panel’s response.

I’m reading, “The Ball is Round - A Global History of Soccer.” It’s a pretty good book and has been a good introduction to the game. One of the things that surprised me is that in the early days, “amateurism” was the spirit of the day. What this meant was that players weren’t paid. So the club owners would invest in building stadiums (often just a few wood stands or even raised earth mounds for spectators) and charge a gate. At the time though, the players saw NONE of the money and that, of course, suited the owners just fine.

Fast forward a hundred or so odd years and replace stadiums with social networking sites, replace the fans with visitors and the players with content creators (who might also be visitors). There’s typically no admission fee but there’s a ton of money flowing into the pockets of the companies that build and maintain the sites. The value of these sites is the content and interaction provided by the members. But the people creating the value are seeing NONE of the revenue.

It seems like a pretty exploitative model to me and one - over time - that’s bound to change in time as people recognize that this is the same old economic model that unions were created to deal with wrapped in newer and friendlier fabric. So I can pay Linden Labs for the privilege of creating value for Linden Labs . . . hmmmm. What’s wrong with this picture?

So I asked the panel what they though. Whether they’re respective companies would ever think of a model that recognized and compensated people for the value they bring to the community. Guess what? The short answer is no. I was told that this was a naïve question, that people are already rewarded with intangible things like recognition and kudos.

Those early soccer players were also rewarded by the cheers of the fans but sooner or later they recognized that cheers don’t buy a whole hell of a lot.

One of the big ideas of this whole social media thing is the democratization of content creation and distribution and that’s awesome. But the result can’t be a concentration of money and control in the hands of the few built on the work of the many. That just isn’t going to be sustainable forever.

Is it time to form a content creators union? Is it time to organize the unrecognized social media workforce? Is it at least time to take a step back and ask these kinds of questions?
Let me know what you think.

So a colleague sent me this article from Computerworld last night - finally, I have a label!  I am part of the Virtual Generation - and I am with pride.  Here’s how Gartner describes GenV in the article:

Generation Virtual, or V, is made up of people from multiple age groups who make social connections online — through virtual worlds, in video games, as bloggers, in social networks or through posting and reading user-generated content at e-commerce sites such as Amazon.com, said Adam Sarner, senior analyst at Gartner.

Forget Generations X and Y: Here comes Generation V

I spend WAY more time active and interacting in virtual communities and relationships that I do the physical world (OK, so that might be an exaggeration - but I do a lot online). And I do these things through a number of persona that have developed for different purposes.

So here’s my life as a 41 year old member of GenV:

I have three blogs that I update regularly - two of them every day.  Only this one is by me the person.  The others are written as persona - and one of those was a splinter from the first . . .

There is an online relationship with a fan of one of my blogs.  I’m very open about this.  My wife knows, friends know, she knows I’m married - we all know the terms and it’s all good.  Our relationship is built around collaborating on what is frankly pretty much pure filth smut.  The stories are a lot of fun and have resulted in a very popular blog (and no, I am not telling anyone where to find it).

I have three Facebook profile that I am on every day.  One is me, the other two and tied to my other blogs and have distinct friends.

I can’t even guess how many email accounts I have but there are four that I use on a daily basis.

Flickr is my friend and though I’ve slowed down recently (I need to revise my photographic workflow) I visit the site every day.

Twitter - and the network of friends and contacts there - has become a big part of my day.

(There’s more but I need to get moving - I have to bring my daughter to Spanish soon.)

When I read or hear people criticizing virtual contacts, communities, connections, relationships, etc. I always think that they’re the ones missing out.  Online communities and just as rich - if not richer - that their real world analogs.  They are populated by a far more diverse range of people and interests than you come across in the real world.  There’s only one GPC wandering around in physical space but there are several versions and variations of me active online.  And truly, I think that is a good thing.

Technorati Tags: Generation V, Computerworld, GenV, persona, person, identity, blogs, Twitter, Facebook, email, communities, Flickr, relationships

Blogged with Flock

WebInno continues to be a must-attend event here in Boston and this month’s installment (and the last of the year) shows no sign of disappointing.

So let’s see what’s on deck, shall we?

Main Courses

FlipKey- these guys are all about helping find great vacation rentals. Now you may be saying to yourself, “how hard can it be?” and to a certain extent, you’d be right. But their point is that most people find it much easier to simply book a hotel room rather than looking for a place to rent. They’re also saying that there are tons of vacation properties around that are vacant most of the time so their owners are missing out on some economic upside. FlipKey wants to make finding and renting a vacation property simple. Maybe it’s not a cure for cancer but sounds pretty cool to me.

Expectation that I’ll be wowed – not super high. The idea makes sense and all but I’m not sure it’s going to be a big show-stopper demo.

Chances that I’m way off base - pretty low. I get the idea and am looking forward to seeing it but don’t expect it’s far from my expectations.

Lemonade - billed as ecommerce for everyone, I’m a little confused by Lemonade. It’s not like you have to own the products you sell on your stand, you only “recommend” them. You can put your stand on Facebook and other social networks which is good since who’s going to go to Lemonade to find my stand? Seems odd but what the hell, I signed up. That process was pretty smooth (the section for selecting your date of birth didn’t really work) and parts of it were really slick (the tool for choosing your stand color comes to mind). The range of products you can include on your stand is pretty extensive – almost a million – and they run the gambit from pretty cool to pretty crappy. One thing that I wasn’t clear on – and it might just because I didn’t read everything as carefully as I should have – was how you (and Lemonade) actually make money. I guess they’ll explain all that on Tuesday.

Expectation that I’ll be wowed – I really, really want to be wowed by this. If it’s a way for me to make a little cash I’m all over it.

Chances that I’m way off base – very high. This sounds too good to be true so it probably is.

iiProperty - I guess if one “i” in front of a word is good, two “i”s must be twice as good. Either that or this is targeting aspiring sailors. Joking aside, this is an online property management tool for owners, builders, realtors, etc. who need to manage property as a commercial asset. This is the second property related demo at the event and it will be interesting to see if there is any connection between the way they each talk about themselves and their market. It’s also the second company I’ve seen in the past few days that seeks to automate a business process to make it easier and more palatable. (The other is FreshBooks http://www.freshbooks.com/ - which is seeking to provide billing systems.) Not being in their target market (although I do like boats) I didn’t register for this one to check it out. The idea makes sense though, and I will say, I was a building manager at one point and there were lots of parts of the job that would have been easier with a computer or something but it was the 80s so what can you do?

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – moderate. I don’t really know all the ins and outs and intricacies of property management so I may be pretty easy to impress.

Chances that I’m way off base – equally moderate. Who knows . . .

Side Dishes:

Carbon Rally - now this is cool. It uses competition to get people to make little changes in their lives to deal with environmental issues. The site issues challenges – things like giving up bottled water for a week – and calculates the carbon impact this will have. It encourages people to create teams of friends and colleagues to compete with others to see who can eliminate the most carbon from their day-to-day activities. As someone who recently gave up his parking space in Kendall Square in favor of the train, I’m all for what they’re doing.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – pretty high. I like what these guys are doing, I like the approach they are taking and want it to work.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty low. What I’ve seen of the site looks good.

Mixandmeet - kind of like flashmobs meet online dating – but not quite, Mix&meet lets you create social situations with random people on the fly. Hmmmm. So you feel like grabbing a drink after work but all your co-workers are losers? Just tell Mix&meet where you are and what you want to do and you’ll get a note telling you who you’re meeting, where and when. It sounds pretty cool to me. I actually met the founder, Bruce Franco, the other night at the xconomy launch party and he sure made it sound appealing. I signed up for the service but it’s not quite ready just yet so I guess I’m going to have to wait.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – as someone who loves going out to drink and meeting new people, I expect I’ll think this is pretty cool.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty good. I’m 41 and I’m willing to bet that this is going to be popular with a slightly younger set and I’ll be seen as kind of an outlier.

Panospin - haven’t I seen this somewhere before? Panospin provides360 degree panoramas and to be honest, I know these have been around for years – years and years and years. So I’m honestly curious about what makes this different, new or better than previous incarnations. The language on the site seems a little bizarre to me - “Although still photography is good for detailed views, it doesn’t simulate a real life experience the way a 360 degree panorama can.” Huh. By this logic, video would be even better for “simulating” real life, so why not just grab a camcorder and go nuts. Color me skeptical.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – hovering at or below the Mendoza line.

Chances that I’m way off base – fair I suppose – it’s possible that I’m missing some wonderful and essential fact about Panospin that will totally blow me away . . . but I doubt it.

360gadget - when I first saw this company’s name I thought, “is it really possible that there are TWO 360 degree panorama companies coming to WebInno?” Not surprisingly, the answer is “no.” So what does 360gadget do? The apparently provide a customized Facebook page that can contain all sorts of terrific stuff – Google search, RSS, YouTube, etc. I say apparently because every link I tried on the page gave me a slightly different error message. I’ll try it again at some point but I didn’t really do that much for me.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – gimmie a Z, “Z”, gimme an E, “E”, gimme an R, “R”, gimmie an O, “O”, what’s that spell? “Zero!” What’s that spell, “Zero!!”

Chances that I’m way off base – very high. Look, the thing wasn’t working when I went to check it out and so it might be beyond fantastic. Having a broken site isn’t good though so I’ll have to wait till Tuesday to see for sure I guess.

Student Concourse - ah for those halcyon days of carefree youth! But it looks like youth isn’t as carefree as it used to be (or at least as carefree as I remember it). Student Concourse vows to help though and they’ve created what looks like a pretty slick application. Not only does the application itself look pretty cool, the site is nice as well. Being that I’m not a student in the most technical sense of the word, there’s plenty about this application that’s probably Greek to me but I’m still looking forward to checking it out.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – very high. From the little I’ve seen I want to see more so I am hopeful.

Chances that I’m way off base – pretty low. I think this looks cool – of course there are a ton of questions and I’m only talking about this from an application/technology perspective – who knows about the business model . . .

Untravel Media - so just because of the order they’re listed on the WebInno page (kinda sorta alphabetical) this is the last company I checked out. It also happens to be the one that I think is the most interesting. It combines a bunch of stuff that I really like – mobility, travel, media, etc. So what is this all about? It’s about portable content on places produced by the people who live there and telling interesting stories. There are a few examples up on the site now - “Creeping through Boston” - that has to do with Salem (for Halloween and all). The concept, content, site, etc. are all very polished. The process for creating the content is pretty complicated and I hope that it isn’t always going to be (you have to apply to product content, go through a review and training process, attend regular meetings, etc.). It would be great is people were able to do these films in a faster and more flexible process. I can imagine people seeing this content and deciding they can do it without all of the process and overhead. Either way though, this is cool.

Expectations that I’ll be wowed – super high. I like this one very much.

Chances that I’m way off base – tiny; it’s possible that it’s going to seem way less cool when I see it in person but I don’t think so.

So that about wraps things up for my WebInno15 preview. I think the companies look pretty good this month. I’m bummed it’s the last one of the year but it looks like it’s going to end on a high note. Keep your eyes peeled for my scorecard after the event to see how close my preview was to reality.

Technorati Tags: WebInno, FlipKey, Lemonade, iiProperty, Carbon Rally, MixandMeet, Panospin, 360gadget, student concourse, untravel media

A couple of weeks ago I attended the kick off for the Fall program of the MIT Communications Forum. The evening’s focus was on the new Center for the Future of Civic Media (C4FCM) and exploring what Civic Media was all about. I’ve prepared a summary of the event for the Comm Forum Web site but thought I’d share a little bit here as well.

The format for the evening was a panel discussion. It featured Henry Jenkins of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program, Chris Csikszentmihalyi of the MIT Media Lab, Beth Noveck of New York Law School and Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Center and Global Voices.

What struck me most during the course of the discussion was the idea that the media has failed to provide a means for people to be engaged with their communities. Part of this had to do with the technologies people use to consume media - which were described as being designed for the individual at the expense of the community. Civic media itself, of course, is itself built on technology.

According to Jenkins, Civic Media is any use of any medium (by which he means a communications technology and the protocols that govern its use) that fosters any civic engagement. So while communication technology has been part of the problem in the past, it is seen as part of the solution for the future. How can this work? The main issue is that the individual nature of much technology has fostered the rise of media (and to an extent a democracy) that is built around talk rather than action. Civic media - it’s hoped - will create a media based around action by providing people not only with information but with the tools to put information to work. Building on the democracy theme, Jenkins said that democracy needs to be more than a special event that takes place once a year. It needs to become an everyday challenge and activity; and everyone needs to be asking what are the technologies that will help create this sense of engagement.

When it comes to the issue of technology, Csikszentmihalyi pointed out that everything has winners and losers - as well as unanticipated uses. He thought it was unfortunate that so few technologies support the idea of civic engagement but went a step further, suggesting that specific types of engagement need to be supported and encouraged. His view was that civic media needs to be about gaming the system to create better civic spaces. Again, the idea that democracy isn’t being supported by the current media came through loud and clear.

Noveck was probably the most outspoken of the panelists on the failure of the media in fostering public conversation. According to her, the deliberative role of the media - and of democracy itself - has failed and she suggested that the time might be right to reinvent our conception of the media. She pointed out that civic engagement and conversation don’t necessarily translate into participation or a change in power structures. There were a few reasons for this. First, community-level engagement doesn’t scale and second because the issues we face often require more knowledge and information than people have. Providing tools to access and share information with larger and larger communities (whether actual communities or imagined ones) is the key to Noveck. She described the end-game as recasting our conceptualization of the First Amendment to be not simply about talking about talk but also talking about action.

Zuckerman provided some great examples of civic media in action around the world. Cases where communities were forced to create their own news because the traditional media was controlled by the government. So not only were these people creating content and conversation and action - they were also building the communication channels around their actions to bring attention that hadn’t been there in the past. He also described the “action, not words” aspect of civic media by describing a situation where crowds rallied via SMS and Twitter were able to block the progress of local police and secure the release of an arrested man. What he described was neither talk for the sake of talk or action for the sake of action but the practical blending of ideas and engagement to shift the balance of power and effect change.

At the end of the day, that was really what everyone was talking about - how do we make technology more than a tool for individual entertainment and content consumption and more into a tool to connect people and ideas in ways that will benefit their communities. Considering this issue - and developing the ideas and tools to make it happen - is the goal of the Center. It’s very cool and I am looking forward to getting involved.

Technorati Tags: MIT, MIT Communication Forum, MIT Center for the Future of Civic Media, C4FCM, Civic Media, MIT Media Lab, Berkman Center, Henry Jenkins, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Beth Noveck, Ethan Zuckerman

I’m working on a paper for the Society for New Communications Research on “New Media, New Influencers and Implications for Public Relations Professionals” to be presented at the Society for New Communications Research Symposium here in Boston in December. I’d appreciate it if people would be willing to complete (and share) a survey on the topic.

There are actually two surveys - one aimed at communication professionals and another for general consumers.

In addition, we’re looking to include case studies on how companies are adopting and applying new media/social media programs. Please let me know if you know of companies that might be interested. You can reach me at gpc AT pevco DOT net.

Technorati Tags: SNCR, social media, public relations, PR, communications, survey

Aside from having to run to San Francisco for a quick meeting (no really, I like day trips to California) this is shaping up to be a great week. Why? Because Thursday night is just chuck full of good events.

I’ll be starting my evening at the kick off for the MIT Communication Forum Fall series. The Comparative Media Studies program and the Media Lab have come together to create the new MIT Center for Future Civic Media and Thursday night’s forum will ask the question. “What is Civic Media.” It’s going to be happening from 5:00 to 7:00 in the Bartos Theater at 20 Ames Street. I’m excited to see these two groups put their heads together around technology, emerging media forms and civic engagement.

The panel will feature:

Chris Csikszentmihalyi is Muriel R. Cooper Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at the MIT Media Lab.

Henry Jenkinsis co-director of Comparative Media Studies and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities at MIT.

Beth Noveck is professor of law at New York Law School where she directs the Institute for Information Law & Policy.

Ethan Zuckerman is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, and co-founder of Global Voices.

It should be terrific and will serve as a great beginning to what promises to be a solid series of events.

Later that same night - and not far down the road - will be the first Social Media Club meeting of the Fall. Business Wire is sponsoring a panel on the social media lessons learned by corporate America. In my role as the programming director for the Club, I helped pull this panel together and am really excited by the topic and the speakers. The only thing that bums me out is that I am going to be late; but there isn’t much I can do about that.

Here’s the panel line up for this event:

Steve Restivo, Director of Corporate Affairs, Wal-Mart Northeast, will discuss how America’s biggest retailer has started to put social media to work and the lessons they have learned along the way.

Dan Lyons, Senior Editor, Forbes Magazine and the man behind Fake Steve Jobs, will discuss how the lines of mainstream media and the blogosphere have blurred and how this impacts communications professionals and corporate PR. Dan is also the author of the forthcoming book “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody.”

Josh Bernoff, Vice Principal & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, will address how the adoption of social media is changing the world or corporate communication. Josh is also currently co-authoring (with Charlene Li, also of Forrester) “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.”

Monika Maeckle, Vice President, Southwest Region, Business Wire, will moderate. Monika has been deeply involved in the development of Business Wire’s EON suite of services, a web only social media platform. Maeckle is also the author of many of Business Wire’s SEO tip sheets and blog posts.

Things will be kicking off on Thursday, September 2 at 6:30 at the Newton Marriott so be sure to come on down. You can find more details – and a registration link – on the Social Media Clubwiki.

Both events are going to be good so try to make it to one or both if you can swing it.

Technorati Tags: MIT Communications Forum, MIT Media Lab, MIT Center for Future Civic Media, Comparative Media Studies, Chris Csikszentmihalyi, Henry Jenkins, Beth Noveck, Ethan Zuckerman, SMCBoston, Steve Restivo, Wal-Mart, Dan Lyons, Forbes, Fake Steve Jobs, Josh Bernoff, Forrester, Monika Maeckle, Business Wire, Events, Boston