Via Canalside View
Monday, December 20
Saturday, December 18
Launching Second Blog "deadbait"
Dear readers, I'm launching a second blog "deadbait." Its a more personal blog focused on writing, Americana, ephemera, the outdoors, genealogy--basically, my other passions. I don't think most people know this about me, but I have two degrees in theater, like a lot of folk, I fell into marketing and planning. I've written and produced plays in London, Chicago, and New York, but perhaps have been a bit neglectful of my creativity of late. Well, here's my new year's resolution a bit early, write more often, write more about the things, people and cultures I love, and write more just for the hell of it. Take a look, leave a comment and if you enjoy it, subscribe to it. Cheers.
Friday, December 10
Monday, December 6
A Magic Augmented Reality Christmas Tale via Metaio
Very cool holiday card from Metaio featuring Simon Pierro (magician) and augmented reality! Thank you Metaio and a Merry Christmas to Jan, Lisa and Nora and the gang too!
If you aren't up on the benefits and innovative work of Metaio you're missing out. We worked with them at 2010 SXSW to launch a fun augmented reality game last year.
Thursday, December 2
PR needs to Start Building Brand Tools
My colleagues in PR ask me often, why do I have to start building stuff—you know, Facebook pages and apps? PR doesn’t do this—ad agencies do—what we do is influence the right person to carry forth messages for our clients, right?
Wrong. Things have changed. We now live in a “network economy” and the network has to be fed. The network economy is a new but oddly familiar landscape, enhanced by social technologies, mobile, and other tools that enable us to get and stay connected. There are many reasons we crave connection—but suffice it to say, it’s because we’re human. It’s just what we do.
The way in which we participate in and maintain our network is everything. We don’t just “checkin”—a loose tie to our network, we also exchange and share—resulting in deeper ties. We share content, pictures, videos, game together, exchange our thoughts and opinions. This is the capital we use in this exchange. That’s right—the network economy is a bank where we make deposits and withdrawals. In return for sharing, we get attention and participation back. This is the heart of connection.
We now have to start building utilities and content that can be exchanged, distributed, and used by others to build their network capital. This capital is content with utility (economic, cultural, social) that is easily re-mixed (to create a sense of ownership) or shared by the users of the network. It’s drawn upon the most active network members to meet their own goals. With careful community moderation, brands can play a role in helping someone increase their influence. This is often rewarded with advocacy. Yet we must remain tuned-in, because the price of admission into the community is scrutiny—it’s necessary for brands to develop a thick skin and open mindset.
That capital is valuable because it builds influence. Now, influence, is a familiar word to my colleagues. The top-down mode of building influence isn’t dead—official messages from official people—it’s just no longer the preferred method. Status, official status, from the anointed, the tastemakers, celebs, lobbyists, and insiders is not as valuable as it once was, because c’mon , these figures aren’t in our networks. They’re influential, but we’ve come to realize that the capital they once provided isn’t as meaningful as the capital provided by our “friends, fans, and followers.” In fact, the high-priests of politics, pop-culture, and business have joined twitter, Meetup and Ning to build their own network capital.
PR must now similarly transform—this doesn’t mean becoming an ad agency, it means learning and adopting new skills, becoming integrated into a broader channel mix. Our core reason for being is actually sustained by building “brand tools”, content and conversation that help people maintain their networks. Now we can co-create communities to cultivate advocates from directly. Using social listening tools alongside analytics will help us to uncover new unmet needs, tensions to resolve and behavioral insights. Now when we engage, we must come to people and influencers with something valuable to exchange. We must strive to change the perception that PR is there to leach network capital from people without benefit to them by giving first.
In a sense, the network economy rules are not that different from any market, where goods are sold, traded and bartered for profitable sustained relationships. By integrating community management to community engagement, taking responsibility for creating the kind of content and interactions that will become currency, PR can bring meaningful value back to the “relations” we have with the “public.” To do this, the PR industry must drop the prejudices against facilitating connections with content and utility. We must get our hands dirty with the grease of digital industry. Our partner agencies must also realize that we need each other to make new network capital for our client’s communities. Internally, our community manager mustn’t feel diminished either, just because utility is now on the table alongside conversation. In fact, community managers must help us co-create utility with the community.
Ok--so what does a Brand Tool for PR look like? Since our mission in PR is to cultivate communities to identify and leverage influencers to advocate on behalf of a brand or issue, a PR Brand Tool has to do the following things.
1. Leverage sharing through a technology platform
2. Contain a value exchange (cultural, incentive, what have you)
3. Be unique/novel enough to capture attention and pass along
4. Create opportunity for influencers to be experts
5. Connect a community to generate conversation (for recommendations/testimonials)
Interestingly, Clay Shirky has identified a way to produce "brand tools" for PR using "cognitive surplus"--that is, human generosity on a platform, that solves a communities issues. His example of the work of Ushahidi in my mind, combines a technology platform, with the work of influencers (through loose collaboration) that solves a problem, leverages sharing, provides an exchange, is novel, and relevant.
At Porter Novelli, we've just started to create widgets, apps, and Facebook communities for clients like the FDIC, Gillette and Soy Joy, that provide utility while creating advocacy. Its rife with challenges and debates--it means we're becoming more like a digital agency, yes, but with a unique offering. What kinds of Brand Tools can you imagine creating for your own clients, brands and issues? If your already building apps and tools--great--but are you also thinking about mitigating the negative testimony? If so, then you're doing PR, if you're only focused on positive results--and not leveraging them to further build the community, then you're really just doing advertising. The opportunity for PR companies is to work with nascent communities built by advertising agencies and GROW them to becoming "public" communities you have a "relationship" with. See where I'm going? Good luck creating your own PR Brand Tools!
Wrong. Things have changed. We now live in a “network economy” and the network has to be fed. The network economy is a new but oddly familiar landscape, enhanced by social technologies, mobile, and other tools that enable us to get and stay connected. There are many reasons we crave connection—but suffice it to say, it’s because we’re human. It’s just what we do.
The way in which we participate in and maintain our network is everything. We don’t just “checkin”—a loose tie to our network, we also exchange and share—resulting in deeper ties. We share content, pictures, videos, game together, exchange our thoughts and opinions. This is the capital we use in this exchange. That’s right—the network economy is a bank where we make deposits and withdrawals. In return for sharing, we get attention and participation back. This is the heart of connection.
We now have to start building utilities and content that can be exchanged, distributed, and used by others to build their network capital. This capital is content with utility (economic, cultural, social) that is easily re-mixed (to create a sense of ownership) or shared by the users of the network. It’s drawn upon the most active network members to meet their own goals. With careful community moderation, brands can play a role in helping someone increase their influence. This is often rewarded with advocacy. Yet we must remain tuned-in, because the price of admission into the community is scrutiny—it’s necessary for brands to develop a thick skin and open mindset.
That capital is valuable because it builds influence. Now, influence, is a familiar word to my colleagues. The top-down mode of building influence isn’t dead—official messages from official people—it’s just no longer the preferred method. Status, official status, from the anointed, the tastemakers, celebs, lobbyists, and insiders is not as valuable as it once was, because c’mon , these figures aren’t in our networks. They’re influential, but we’ve come to realize that the capital they once provided isn’t as meaningful as the capital provided by our “friends, fans, and followers.” In fact, the high-priests of politics, pop-culture, and business have joined twitter, Meetup and Ning to build their own network capital.
PR must now similarly transform—this doesn’t mean becoming an ad agency, it means learning and adopting new skills, becoming integrated into a broader channel mix. Our core reason for being is actually sustained by building “brand tools”, content and conversation that help people maintain their networks. Now we can co-create communities to cultivate advocates from directly. Using social listening tools alongside analytics will help us to uncover new unmet needs, tensions to resolve and behavioral insights. Now when we engage, we must come to people and influencers with something valuable to exchange. We must strive to change the perception that PR is there to leach network capital from people without benefit to them by giving first.
In a sense, the network economy rules are not that different from any market, where goods are sold, traded and bartered for profitable sustained relationships. By integrating community management to community engagement, taking responsibility for creating the kind of content and interactions that will become currency, PR can bring meaningful value back to the “relations” we have with the “public.” To do this, the PR industry must drop the prejudices against facilitating connections with content and utility. We must get our hands dirty with the grease of digital industry. Our partner agencies must also realize that we need each other to make new network capital for our client’s communities. Internally, our community manager mustn’t feel diminished either, just because utility is now on the table alongside conversation. In fact, community managers must help us co-create utility with the community.
Ok--so what does a Brand Tool for PR look like? Since our mission in PR is to cultivate communities to identify and leverage influencers to advocate on behalf of a brand or issue, a PR Brand Tool has to do the following things.
1. Leverage sharing through a technology platform
2. Contain a value exchange (cultural, incentive, what have you)
3. Be unique/novel enough to capture attention and pass along
4. Create opportunity for influencers to be experts
5. Connect a community to generate conversation (for recommendations/testimonials)
Interestingly, Clay Shirky has identified a way to produce "brand tools" for PR using "cognitive surplus"--that is, human generosity on a platform, that solves a communities issues. His example of the work of Ushahidi in my mind, combines a technology platform, with the work of influencers (through loose collaboration) that solves a problem, leverages sharing, provides an exchange, is novel, and relevant.
At Porter Novelli, we've just started to create widgets, apps, and Facebook communities for clients like the FDIC, Gillette and Soy Joy, that provide utility while creating advocacy. Its rife with challenges and debates--it means we're becoming more like a digital agency, yes, but with a unique offering. What kinds of Brand Tools can you imagine creating for your own clients, brands and issues? If your already building apps and tools--great--but are you also thinking about mitigating the negative testimony? If so, then you're doing PR, if you're only focused on positive results--and not leveraging them to further build the community, then you're really just doing advertising. The opportunity for PR companies is to work with nascent communities built by advertising agencies and GROW them to becoming "public" communities you have a "relationship" with. See where I'm going? Good luck creating your own PR Brand Tools!
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