NSIDE Nashville

NO! Not if we’re doing the wrong things. Old ways of doing things sometimes get in the way of innovation, creativity and breakthrough advances. Ever heard: “We don’t do things that way here“. We’re sure that you heard it numerous times in your professional career and walked away wonder “Boy, are they narrow minded but Oh well, don’t rock the boat”.

Today we see traditional mindsets trying to use the web with traditional ways of thinking. While the majority of the major so called “social networks” call themselves unique and innovative the reality is most are copying old ways with just a few breaking out with new ways. The basic fundamentals of any networking platform are the same and built on the same technology as others. The functions and features they offer is what makes each just a little different than the other but fundamentally they are all the same.

The power we have to connect, publish, collaborate and using any and all the tools available enables us to do anything and everything we want. The cry for “open social” makes this differential even more limiting to existing platform operators but limitless to innovative applications that run on all platforms.

Fundamentally today everything we see and hear is much like the web: a huge copy machine in cyberspace where little if anything is actually original. Ideas flow, conversations add to the ideas and people migrate to thoughts and ideas they identify with then claim them as their own thoughts.

The proliferation of copied ideas spun in numerous ways attracts the media, the masses and the money. Original innovation first attracts a few then many and then it replaces the old very quickly and the media, the masses and the money follow.

How Many Does It Take to Make a Difference?

Innovative thought leaders start by looking for a few good followers who agree with an idea, a vision or a possibility. To these thought leaders it isn’t about power rather it is about passion. Once the few are identified they forge ahead supporting and promulgating ideas, visions and concepts. The few then become many and innovation is born, realized and perpetuated to and through the many.

Once the many join in communicating, sharing and forging a new idea ahead the idea becomes a new reality to the masses and markets follow the transactions of the masses consuming ideas and possibilities that create a new future.

The challenge of forging ahead with innovation within the social web starts with finding the few that will communicate and ignite the many whom then will do the same to the masses. The few, the many and the masses are you and I. What we do together to facilitate innovation, support leaders amongst us and reach the masses is up to us. This is the essence of the social web. The few, the many and the masses are now enabled to become the leaders while historically we have been led by old leadership models controlled by the just a few whom control the money, the influence and the reach.

The old model of leadership is locked into experiences of the past. The new model of leadership is aimed at creating the experiences of the future.

Emerging Challenges to Our Success

While the possibilities in the virtual world are numerous, we’ll first have to overcome a number of challenges. Technical limitations are a temporary issue. Technology is exploding but it has yet to reach a state of seamlessness. The biggest problems facing emerging technologies are not technical constraints, but market barriers the companies that could most benefit from development of these platforms have placed in their own way, in an effort to prevent competition. The two biggest challenges to future growth we see are centralization and controlled-access, old mindsets and models applied to the use of new and free technology.

Why are these challenges? The web doesn’t have natural states of existence like the physical world does and the ease of “conversing” is dependent on the technology for doing so. Einstein once said “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity”. Lets paraphrase this and say ” Launching yet another social network or community that doesn’t allow users to connect and converse with other communities seamlessly creates the insanity of the moment and robs us of our time and effectiveness”.

We need to organize and push the “market” to agree to free us from the insanity of the moment. Or would you rather continue to sign in to each “network” separately using your own data? Would you rather be pulled or be the push that creates new markets, new transactions and new opportunities? How many more invitations to yet another community is enough for you?

The Future is Up to You

The largest barrier to progress is not them but us, you and me. Markets move where the masses go. The masses are influenced first by the many and the many are influenced first by the few. It only takes a few like minded people to set a course that benefits the many then the masses. A new course cannot be chartered by doing the same thing over and over rather chartering a new course requires a few thought leaders to agree on a vision that is formed by new thinking, promulgated to the many whom then influence the masses.

Before a few can create a new course the organization of efforts, ideas and conversations must be facilitated so the many can easily access and understand the vision for an improved future. Until the few, you and I, can agree to organization the many so we can effectively influence the markets and create benefit for the masses then we will simply have to live with the existing system whose aim may not be to our collective benefit.

To change the aim, or end result, we must change the system. To change the system requires leadership of a few, organization of the many followed by cooperation and united relations whose collective voice influences markets with new thinking that benefits all. It is up to us to effectively communicate, with the force of many, our desires for an improved future where everyone who can change their thinking wins. It is about us creating a Link to United Relations and subsequently new experiences.

What say you?

In my post last Thursday I shared an email from a friend about remembering to be grateful for the blessings we have in our lives. I do try to practice that on a regular basis - likely, you can see how well I notice the beauty around me in the photographs I have shared with you. Sometimes, though, I get very emotional and wrapped up in myself, worrying about finding a happiness I haven’t even got a definition for - chasing after something imagined that I think I’m supposed to be able to close my hands around to make everything better. In chasing that mentally, I can lose sight of blessings in my immediate view. This is (I believe) what Jenny was warning against. Her email was a reminder not to chase after that imagined thing, but to revel in the beauty your life already holds.

In a past email Jenny sent, she also mentioned that the best thing she did to help her heal was to let herself feel all the emotions that resulted from the heartbreak of her miscarriages. I think that’s important to mention, too. And this applies to any kind of heartache or grief, any emotionally tumultuous experience you might have. I think tempering yourself between these pieces of advice - fully experiencing the pain while still remembering your blessings - is the best place to be.

We can’t push down the painful feelings and just wash, rinse, and repeat the “be grateful for what you have, be grateful for what you have” to ourselves over and over again, as if validating the painful emotions would be a sign that we’re not grateful for what we have. (I know that Jenny understands that, because she shared with me that allowing herself to experience those emotions fully was the only way she’d be sure she would actually really heal in the long run.) But I wanted to make the point here, too. Because I think allowing yourself to be in pain when you are in pain is just as important to remember as consciously taking note of your blessings and being grateful for what you have.

Obviously, I feel that these are good pieces of advice - some of it is Jenny’s (that I agree with) and some of it is my own. And I clearly wouldn’t pass it on to you if I didn’t think it would do someone some good.

So, for today’s installment of “I Wonder…”

What’s the best piece of unsolicited advice you’ve ever gotten?

What’s the worst piece of unsolicited advice you’ve ever gotten?

In yesterday’s Business Week online and article titled Reader Engagement: The Next Level by John A. Byrne states:“The New York Times just revealed a secret project we’ve been working on for nearly two years: The Business Exchange. The new product, to officially debut on Sept. 3rd, brings our reader engagement initiative to a new level. It allows users to create their own business topics on our site. Our search engines will then crawl the web to capture every story and every blog post written on the topic. Readers also can post links to stories and blogs we miss—and also add their perspectives on all this news, analysis and opinion.”

“Our community ultimately decides what is on “the front page” of every topic. Whenever a user reads, saves, shares or adds a story to the topic, those actions help decide what content appears in a “Most Active” page. The benefit: the community acts as a “Citizen Editor” determining what’s most useful and most important to our readers. It’s a short cut to stay on top of the abundance of content in the world, and it’s our way of helping business professionals to stay on top of the game of business.”

Read the entire article here, it is worth it.

Is It Reader or Media Engagement?

In yesterdays post titled Is Value With Operators or Users? we stated “Technology is cheap and easy to find or build. The conversation of the many is where to find the gold. The new market of conversations comes from unconventional thinking about users and producers. The people who create the innovative value is the best source of value and partnership opportunities.”

“Now it seems everyone wants our conversations but who recognizes the users as the greatest value or the critical source of partnerships? Is Linkedin a better partner than the users?”

Business Week’s Business Exchange certainly demonstrates the adaptation of old media to new media. I’ve spent considerable time on their Business Exchange site and besides making user friendly changes the foundation has been laid for this to be very disruptive. Disruptive in what way?

Consider the following:

1. In reality this is in direct competition to existing networks and social media aggregators.
2. Business Exchange represents a shift and a social media draw to businesses yet to adopt all this social stuff as well as those already engaged.
3. Business Week sponsors many on line communities. Will they pull other community users to their own site?
4. Business Week has the audience, the pull and the muscle to leverage Business Exchange into the new paragon of old media switching to new media and for others to follow
5. The media world is competitive. Expect others to try and catch up and try and run by Business Exchange
6. Competition has a funny way of shaking thing out, stirring things up or both. The critical question is whose favor will Business Week seek, the users or the suppliers, the advertisers or the users? Is the media engaging or engagement of the users?

If you thought this space was moving fast previously, buckle up. Business Week’s announcement will stir lot of markets, conversations and competition. Who they listen to and follow will determine whether they stay ahead or get left behind by the next thing to appear in these crazy markets fueled by conversations. So Will Business Week be able to win the race for our attention? Do they have the Socialution?

Use this link for an approved invitation to Business Exchange

What say you?

Last night was my 4th and Final wedding shower. This one was more casual, beachy in theme, and was with my mom's side of the family. I didn't take any photos, like an idiot, but I took some this morning of a most fantastic gift.

These pillowcases were made by hand by an 85 year old Missouri woman. Apparently she does it all the time! I just can't believe how finely crafted they are--not to mention the fun and totally awesome color palette! I mean, wouldn't you expect like a dusty rose/country blue/yellow kind of thing?

I just gushed and gushed about these. I got lots of lovely household gifts, of course. And it was so nice to see everyone. Now that we're living back here I can see everyone more often, and it was nice to tell them goodbye, knowing that in just a week and a half, I'll see them again! (Gulp.)

Today we have a guest post from none other than my own brother, Mike Seaver…no, not that Mike Seaver…my brother Mike Seaver. Anyway, he’s on the pastoral staff at Crossway Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, but he sent me the following post because he was an advertising major in college and still gets a burn on about media and marketing from time to time. He’s got a take on Visa’s Olympic commercials that I thought was worth sharing here. It’s not specific about social media…it’s more about branding and Visa’s campaign in general.

My wife and I love watching the Olympics and even enjoy the creative commercials. Many are funny and some are inspiring. I find myself now exercising with the thought of “I wonder if I could do that.” The answer is of course, no, but it is fun to wonder.

The Beijing Olympics have provided a series of commercials from Visa that are both enjoyable and annoying. They’re enjoyable because they have the voice of Morgan Freeman and the images of many athletes performing marvelous feats. They’re annoying because each of them ends with “GO WORLD.”

The first time I saw that I said, “What, GO WORLD…what the heck does that mean?” Can we not pull for a team or country enough to say in the United States, “GO USA.” We have to be so inclusive and non-offensive that we say “GO WORLD.” If I went to a local Carolina Panthers game and stood up and started saying “GO NFL…you go National Football League players,” everyone would know I was an idiot. You pull for one team or the other, you don’t pull for all of the teams equally. Why in the world do we have the Olympics if we are pulling for everyone equally at the same time? That undermines everything the Olympics stands for.

A few years ago I was in Brazil during the World Cup. I appreciated the trash talk from the Brazilians. They were not saying, “GO USA,” they were telling me how bad we were going to get beat. It was fun. It was sports. Hello…this is what competition is all about.

So, if Visa is going to be one of these “every player gets a trophy” type of companies and can’t have the guts to say “GO USA” in the USA, I say “GO AWAY,” but let us keep Morgan Freeman…he has a cool voice.

While technology plays a role within any social media initiative it is the least important role. The most important Socialution is “how” any initiative will be perceived as either taking away or adding value to people. For instance:

1. Does the initiative help people resolve problems or does it just mask problems?
2. Is the initiative tied directly to improving peoples experience with your business operations?
3. Have all the stakeholders (employees, customers, markets etc.) been made aware of and understand the purpose a social media initiative?
4. What are the key metrics of measurement for measuring the impact of any initiative?
5. Are social media initiatives aligned with other initiatives and tactics that aim at a common strategic purpose?

As more and more brands create “social media initiatives” those that do it successfully will do so by adopting a set of “social principles” that create lasting attraction and traction generated by people who participate. These principles include:

1. The social initiative is more about them, the users, than you
2. Free can turn to revenue when you create unique value
3. Advertising is not social, solutions and knowledge are
4. Bias and politics create anti social reactions from those seeking social interactions and solutions
5. Affinity to your community is established by enabling users to create the affinity
6. Information precedes knowledge which precedes creativity and innovation.
7. Social Media is a system not a silo, not a means to capture or force engagement
   
8. Technology enables valuable conversational threads, provide the tools that create the means
9. The differentials that create lasting value is oriented to saving time, creating connectivity and seamless interfaces
10. Competitive advantage comes from collaboration rather than isolation

As we said in Have You Failed Successfully? Part 1; Everyone wants results and the results come from failing fast then changing methods to fail even faster. It is learning from others failures as well as your own that enables you to reach any definition of success.

The elements of success have always been and will always be centric to people, value and principles. You can get the technology right, you can even start out with a differential but unless you define the foundational principles correctly your initiative will not create long term strategic value and it will be just another initiative. Failing successfully has short cycle times for correction. The cycle times are in web time which is now. Tomorrow is too late.

Whether for personal or professional gain, principles remain the same. You can fail successfully as long as you don’t compromise your principles. If you approach the social web as a game of capture or tricks of the trade those are anti social principles.

Get it? What say you?

This past weekend, The Manga Craze swept, no besieged Twitter.

Avatar after avatar of my Twitter Peeps turned into cartoon characters. And it was driving me insane.

In protest, I changed my avatar to a picture of the BEWBS.

But honestly, I couldn’t resist the lure, and I made several.

I faced My Manga…

I even faced John’s Manga…

Then, I faced My Marital Manga.

With a little effort, you can even face Your Kid’s Manga.

Are you ready to Face Your Manga?

Yesterday I talked about the difference between the two…today I saw this video on the Collide Magazine blog. It’s an advertising stunt from Australia that’s literally explosion marketing. It sounds like some people were on hand to see what would happen but I wonder how many can remember the company that did this and then used the company’s services as a result. It makes a big boom but what did it really do in the end? I think a spark strategy would have been better…but take a look for yourself.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

I had two experiences recently that have solidified my conviction that doing it "the old way" is a really good way to lose cool points. As someone who thrives on cool points (the father of two teenage boys and a college professor), these revelations benchmark an appropriate place in my learning.

The first experience that I learned from was the 2008 Beijing Olympics, brought to us in the United States by NBC. I believe I watched more of the Olympics (so far, anyway) this time than any other, though I haven't yet figured out why. I realized that something just wasn't right, but I kept coming back for more.

I suspect it had something to do with just coming off a fairly intense productivity push, to be followed after about three weeks (perfect timing) by another. It might have been the "most spectacular opening ceremonies in history" though I did not see them. It's possible that it was the record-setting gold medal quest by Michael Phelps (I was a swimmer as a young boy about the time that Mark Spitz was setting the previous record). I doubt that it's because the gymnastics judges have a clue what they are doing (I won't even get into what I think they were motivated by when they ripped not one, but two Americans off in favor of Chinese gymnasts).

When I saw danah boyd's post on Olympics 2.0, I knew I had identified the problem.

As danah noted, for those who don't want to be stuck on the arbitrary schedule of NBC producers, it would be nice if somewhere we could get real-time feeds (I would settle for just-recorded video) of the events. I think we have figured out that there are some that would still be excited about watching the recorded event for the first time, but for those who are addicted to now, it would have been a great idea to demonstrate the technology capabilities of the 21st Century. And yes, I would accept this option for a fee. Thanks, NBC, for giving us an example of the "old way." Aren't you partnered with Microsoft on many fronts? That explains a lot!

The second experience was much more cutting edge. My son rented (the old-school way, from a bricks-n-mortar Blockbuster store) a copy of the movie Never Back Down. I wasn't too excited about the movie when we started watching it, as I am not a huge advocate of people beating each other up for the sake of seeing who can incur the most mind-numbing, near-fatal injuries, but I agreed to watch the movie. The story line was actually pretty enticing, the language and shown violence were somewhat limited, the subtle message was decent and the acting wasn't the sub-B-rated junk I expected.

But the grasp of powerful marketing strategy was phenomenal!

During each fight, and many other places throughout the movie, you see people with mobile phones shooting pictures and videos. Periodically, you can see an actual video camera in use, but it's relatively small and operated by a teenager so you know it's probably digital. Now, that sparked my interest, but the next logical thought was "what are they doing with those?" There were a few shots where one person stood next to the other and played the video on the device that captured it, but I wanted more!

The movie ended, and we moved naturally into the clips at the end that were cut, re-shot, etc., and I saw it. A montage of YouTube videos and responses that showed exactly what goes on in the world (not the stuff that Directors and Mega-companies think goes on). There was a conversation, in real time, using multi-media, to talk to others about life experiences. Videos on Youtube (and probably others) were portrayed in the air, in no particular order, with text comments in follow up . . . and people were having conversations!

Imagine what NBC could have done with that! What if, in real time, we could watch AND discuss the adventures of Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, Shawn Johnson, Rebecca Soni, Dalhausser and Rogers, Walsh and May-Treanor, and of course the U.S. men's basketball team. How much traction could they have gotten if they handed off back and forth between their website and "live" or at least big screen coverage? What if instead of watching a mind-numbing video of the marathon or what seemed like hours on the rowing the announcer slipped over to the comments (screened and filtered, of course) on their blog?

And what if they mentioned the conversations on Twitter(see @olympicnews or @OlympicsBlog, or the list of olympic medals there from @olympicmedals?

What do you think?