Archives for posts with tag: Social Graph

SXSW 2012: The need for calm technology, Part 3

March 15, 2012 //

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Remember the Jetsons? The idea that robots and machines would do all the work for you while you can enjoy your life? Walking around the grounds of SXSW, one begins to think that something went awfully wrong. The machines are not here to serve us anymore, we’re serving and working for the machines. We’ve become slaves to the machines. The obsessive trap of compulsive loop systems like Email and Twitter keeps us busy engaging with the machines while we spend less time engaging with real-life humans.

Noisy technology has made us less human, less focused, less engaged with real people, problems and challenges.

Calm technology will get out of the way, let us live our lives as humans, unobstructed by technology and the need to push buttons all day. With calm technology, actions become buttons; invisible interfaces trigger interactions. Calm technology is just there, it works but it doesn’t require you to be glued to a device.

Just imagine: You geofenced multiple locations that you pass by each and every day. (Geofencing enables your actions to serve as buttons by creating persistent background locations that quietly track your every move.) While you leave the house, all unnecessary electronic items and lights will be switched off immediately. Since your work is only 10 minutes away, the geofence triggers the coffee machine to start up at your office and the computer to be turned on and ready for your arrival. (This example comes from Amber Case’s keynote at SXSW.)

It gets much deeper than that.

Imagine a device that records everything you do. It registers all the music you listen to, tracks each and every moment, knows who you interacted with, records when you work out and how intense, tracks your sleeping patterns, your food consumption, the quality of air you breathe – basically it tracks anything you do and encounter.

You already have that device in the palm of your hand most of the day. All above sounds a bit creepy because you’re afraid to share of the information with a third party. What are they going to do with that data? Increase your health insurance premium because you stopped at a burger joint once a week, didn’t work out enough and lived in smoggy conditions for 60 days a year? The scenario loses its creepiness when third parties don’t have access to it because you own the data. You control who has access to it.

How valuable would it be for your physicians to be able to access all your health data and provide you with better remedies to improve your health?

How fascinating would it be to explore your real-life social graph and encounters, the ones that’s tracked by your smartphone?

What amazing insights could we gather from all of our consumption habits and how to change them over time?

The majority of the data is already being collected. We don’t have access to it, private vertical silos do. Once we take real ownership of this data, we can really put that data to use. Currently, we create all this data to get incrementally more relevant advertising. Nice to have but nothing that changes my life dramatically. What will change lives is gathering this data in the background and putting it to important use: Health, Work, Entertainment, Education – you name it. That’s the revolutionary idea of VRM.

The future is not about being chained to the machines, feeding their insatiable appetite for data. The future is about integrating technology to improve lives, making our world a better place. That was always the idea, wasn’t it?

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The state of Social Commerce

August 1, 2011 //
Social Commerce (July 2011)

A few highlights:
  • F-Commerce is real. Some predict that 10-15% of total customer spending will be funneled through social sites in the next five years.
  • Some brands placed their whole store on Facebook but most brands are dipping a toe into F-commerce with limited time or limited-edition sales.
  • F-Commerce might take off quickly for “high-consideration goods” (Electronics, Sporting Goods and Baby Gear).
  • Common Facebook privacy concerns might throttle growth.
  • Overlaying the social graph on e-commerce is an emerging trend.
  • Hyper-personalization based on social expressions is a desirable feature.
  • Brands have to walk a fine line between refining the experience to be even more relevant at the same time ensuring consumers feel their information is safe and secure.
  • Retailers are beginning to overlay the social graph at brick-and-mortar locations.

Explore the presentation and the in-depth report. Well worth your time.

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The Fluidity of Influence

March 28, 2011 //

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There was a time when influence was pretty much fixed and set in stone. Beyond our little family/friend tribe, we just had interactions with poorly connected individuals and groups. The connections were so poor that we often forgot about them, any move or change in lifestyle made connections disappear for good. (I moved almost 20 times in my life and my old stomping grounds are littered with lost connections.) Influence used to be characterized by repeated interactions with the same poorly connected individuals.

Influence is fluid now

Influence has nothing to do with popularity or fame. It’s also not equal to the nature or form in which we are connected to each other. Influence is about adopting an idea or behavior amongst the people around us and the others around them. Influentials don’t do anything to others, it’s the response of the influenced that counts.

Influence is not important when it comes to life-or-death decisions. When I dislocate my shoulder, I won’t ask my social graph if I should go to the hospital or not. But I will ask my connections if I should buy an Apple or Dell monitor. Or if that certain movie is worth watching. Influence comes down to move the needle between equally good and fundamentally indistinguishable options. And we feel comfortable to ask for advice from fleeting, indirect connections to millions of others and their groups and their connections. These groups and connections change for any decision I’m making. They are not fixed or determined by the number of Twitter followers or Facebook connections.

That’s one of the fallacies of the whole Klout debate: There’s no fixed score of influence. Everything is fluid.

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Do Social Media change your inter-personal demographics?

July 17, 2010 //
Comparing my friends in real life and friends in my Social Graph, I had an interesting revelation: most of my “real friends” are outwardly similar to me. We have common interests, tend not to be very interracial, multicultural or intergenerational. My Social Graph, on the other hand, is a totally different game. I find myself exchanging thoughts and feelings before even acknowledging, even less caring about skin color, gender or age. I have people in my network young enough to be my kids and significantly older than me. I hear from atheists, evangelists, wing-nuts, unemployed, independently wealthy – you get the point.
This is especially true for new platforms. When I first discovered Twitter, I just followed anyone that sounded remotely interesting. Over time, social networks start to develop specialized groups (at the worst, cliques) the longer these platforms are around, and the more time communities had to develop. That might be the reason why networks die over time: communities become stale and too much like our real-life networks.
Fresh networks help me to build relationships I never dreamt of when I grew up in a small in town in Germany with two TV network channels, a few awful radio programs and a fading signal from the Armed Forces Network. (Have you ever listened to the Super Bowl at 3am on the top of your house in 35 degrees because that’s the only place you could get a decent signal? Well, I did.)
Interactive Marketing is too often defined as selling things. The real potential of interactive marketing is relationship building – whether it’s groups of unbelievably loyal consumers sharing information, companies supporting online events and services that people use, making useful information available (not shilling information to sell) or interacting directly with consumers. The goal of each brand in the interactive space should be to give people choices. Nobody wants to be told what they want and what to do. The moment the ‘Mute’ button was added to the remote, people used it to have a conversation during commercials. When DVR’s started to become ubiquitous, people started to skip commercials altogether. And we got even more sophisticated when display ads reared their ugly head: We just became blind to them. No technology needed.
Besides some outliers, most marketers have accepted the rules have changed. But, we still play the outdated demographics game of trying to squeeze people into little boxes and messaging to them with even smaller messages. When traditional media reigned supreme, brands like Lexus targeted affluent professionals in their late 30’s and early 40’s. Print, TV and Radio could deliver that audience on a silver platter.
In the new marketing reality, I would rather build lexusbook.com or mylexusspace.com (I was never good at naming things) and connect with the fanatics of my brand. Develop relationships. Develop a community. Develop the brand through people.
Rather than lamenting the demise of traditional marketing and decline of performance metrics, brands need to grab this opportunity by the horns. The glass might be half-empty for selling things through marketing. But it’s overflowing for building relationships.

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Image: Courtesy of 13.media.tumblr

Comparing my friends in real life and friends in my Social Graph, I had an interesting revelation: most of my “real friends” are outwardly similar to me. We have common interests, tend not to be very interracial, multicultural or intergenerational. My Social Graph, on the other hand, is a totally different game. I find myself exchanging thoughts and feelings before even acknowledging, even less caring about skin color, gender or age. I have people in my network young enough to be my kids and significantly older than me. I hear from atheists, evangelists, wing-nuts, unemployed, independently wealthy – you get the point.

This is especially true for new platforms. When I first discovered Twitter, I just followed anyone that sounded remotely interesting. Over time, social networks start to develop specialized groups (at the worst, cliques) the longer these platforms are around, and the more time communities had to develop. That might be the reason why networks die over time: communities become stale and too much like our real-life networks.

Fresh networks help me to build relationships I never dreamt of when I grew up in a small in town in Germany with two TV network channels, a few awful radio programs and a fading signal from the Armed Forces Network. (Have you ever listened to the Super Bowl at 3am on the top of your house in 35 degrees because that’s the only place you could get a decent signal? Well, I did.)

Interactive Marketing is too often defined as selling things. The real potential of interactive marketing is relationship building – whether it’s groups of unbelievably loyal consumers sharing information, companies supporting online events and services that people use, making useful information available (not shilling information to sell) or interacting directly with consumers. The goal of each brand in the interactive space should be to give people choices. Nobody wants to be told what they want and what to do. The moment the ‘Mute’ button was added to the remote, people used it to have a conversation during commercials. When DVR’s started to become ubiquitous, people started to skip commercials altogether. And we got even more sophisticated when display ads reared their ugly head: We just became blind to them. No technology needed.

Besides some outliers, most marketers have accepted the rules have changed. But, we still play the outdated demographics game of trying to squeeze people into little boxes and messaging to them with even smaller messages. When traditional media reigned supreme, brands like Lexus targeted affluent professionals in their late 30’s and early 40’s. Print, TV and Radio could deliver that audience on a silver platter.

In the new marketing reality, I would rather build lexusbook.com or mylexusspace.com (I was never good at naming things) and connect with the fanatics of my brand. Develop relationships. Develop a community. Develop the brand through people.

Rather than lamenting the demise of traditional marketing and decline of performance metrics, brands need to grab this opportunity by the horns. The glass might be half-empty for selling things through marketing. But it’s overflowing for building relationships.

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Advertising – from battleground back to the persuasion lounge

May 18, 2010 //

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Image: Courtesy of 10.media.tumblr.com

While the Facebook Privacy debate rages on, we have to accept a few facts:

  • Facebook is making a play to own identity on the web.
  • Not only that: Facebook is making a play to own everything associated with identity on the web.
  • Facebook is banking on a value exchange between sites and their own database: We give you site traffic and data, we keep all the data to build a semantic map of the Web.
  • We are entrusting personal data to a company that has a problematic record of dealing with user privacy.
  • The majority of Facebook will continue to share information. Why? Because we want to share information.

Does this mean Facebook will continue to be the de facto Social Web? Absolutely not.

Facebook presents a huge opportunity and promise for brands: A data pile of personal information that should enable marketers to deliver more relevant and targeted advertising. Sounds like Behavioral Targeting 2.0. This model implies that people want to receive more targeted and relevant messages. And that’s where the whole model falls apart.

Most of the day, people want to be invisible to advertisers. They want to read or entertain themselves without any disruption of the advertisers. And there are times when I want to hear from advertisers or would love to have a comprehensive profile I want to share with companies. During that limited amount of time, I would love for Acura to know what kind of car I’m looking for and have an insight into my purchase history to develop a personal proposal for me. I would love for Travelocity to know that I’m looking for a hotel close to Heathrow Airport.

We just don’t want this information stockpiled, used against our wishes and used against us during a time when we don’t want to hear from brands. We don’t want information that we shared with one company sold to another company to deliver more disruptive messages.

What we want is to share our digital DNA on our terms. Not on the terms of data mining companies and marketers. On our terms.

Which leads me to the second reason why this model won’t work: My Facebook profile is not the real me. Nobody is the real self on Facebook. We’re revealing a very small part of our real self. Nothing more. Most people stay away from politics or religious topics. We never hear from major conflicts in anybody’s lives. Facebook reminds me of kid shows like Cailou or Berenstein Bears. Sure, there are some minor conflicts but, overall, we’re doing great and everything is awesome. We’re all playing a part in the Facebook world, just like the avatars in Second Life. How do you expect to deliver relevant messages to me if you don’t know the real me?

Last but not least, if Facebook becomes the Social Graph, innovation will stop. Imagine Internet Explorer as the only game in town. No Chrome, no Firefox. Only IE allows you to access the web. If that’s scary, think about Facebook being the only Social Graph in town. No innovation. Stagnation. The Social Web would end before it even really started.

That’s why we need for people to claim ownership of their data. Allow them to store their personal data in a safe and secure space. Share any data on their terms:

  • Dental records with their periodontist and general dentist, avoiding lengthy approval cycles and wasteful document exchanges.
  • The intent to purchase a car with preferred brands. Allow them to send personal proposals. Eliminating the guesswork and sneaky, behavioral tactics of marketers.
  • Their food preferences and budget with restaurants through a location-based application. Allow restaurants to send time-sensitive offers based on personal profile.

Advertising, as defined by Wikipedia, is a non-personal form of communication intended to persuade an audience to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals or services. The current landscape of advertising feels more like a battleground and not a persuasion lounge. We have done the same thing over and over again. More efficient. More relevant. More targeted. It’s still not working.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really see the benefits of living in a world where brands constantly have to fight for and with customers. I’d rather live in a world where brands and people co-create and collaborate. And people share what they really need. On their terms. And advertising could get back to its core business: charming and persuading people.

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