You Do The Dishes

Post from the old site, but updated with some new content:

I’ve come to rely on many of the sites I often visit to curate content for me.  On Facebook, the News Feed curates news about the friends it thinks I’m most interested in.  On Twitter, I rely on certain people I follow to discuss topics of their expertise.  I use Netflix and Amazon’s suggestion features to point me towards things I might want to buy.  With so much information available on the Internet, curation is becoming increasingly important and necessary.  Web curation is based on a few simple premises:

1. The internet has lots of information on it.

2. Users don’t have enough time to sift through all the information themselves.

3. Algorithms can search the web faster than humans and through their social graphs people have already exposed their preferences in one way or another online (your RSS feeds, what you like on Facebook, who you follow on Twitter, what Google search results you +1).

4. You sign up for a site that promises to curate a certain topic for you (I’ve seen news curation as the most common one).

5.  In addition to dedicated curation sites, users on networks are curators.  Content you post on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest…it’s all content that you suggest and bears your seal of approval.

This is undeniably a good thing. I’m a voracious consumer and am constantly looking for  recommendations or information relevant to my interests. I use Twitter as a proxy now. I follow people who I’m interested in and they post links to things that interest them. I follow people on Google Reader and read whatever they share. I’ve tried Summify, but haven’t been too happy with the results. Summify sends you the top five stories of the day that you should read based on your Google Reader feeds, Twitter follow, etc. The problem is that it weighted the results too heavily towards feeds that post a lot.  Also, because I tend to try and click through everything on my Google Reader, Summify was very repetitive for me because it would resend me content I had already seen. What’s the point in that?  You’re supposed to make my time more, not less, efficient.

Regardless, this curation movement is very beneficial. I think it is missing a human component though (which actually may undo the efficiency gains of using an algorithm). Noah Brier recently wrote a post about how the algorithms are created to err on the side of being more conservative – the Netflix algorithm, for example, is more likely to show you a movie that you will give 4 stars rather than a movie which has a 50% chance of 1 star and a 50% chance of 5 stars.  It make sense that in creating an algorithm, companies feel like they need to take a safer approach so that their recommendations are respected and used.  But the missing risk component does diminish the serendipity moments of finding something great.  And that’s where human curation through networks can really play a big role.  You can even see Google and Bing starting to understand the human component that can complement an algorithms results as they start to use +1 and integrate Facebook/Quora/etc.

The truth is that we trust our friends and people with similar interests when it comes to recommendations.  For news, I’m fine with an algorithm.  As for entertainment?  It’s just too subjective and emotional to rely on equations.

Twitter just unveiled a new “Following” feature which allows you to click on someone’s profile and see the Tweets of everyone they follow. It’s essentially like logging in as someone else and seeing how Twitter looks for them – you can read over their shoulder.

Curation

It’s a curation solution and makes the decision-making of who to follow on Twitter more efficient. There are already a few services that let you know who’s who and measure influence in a particular niche.  But this new Twitter feature has the benefit of using your social graph to assist.  For example, rather than sorting through a cold list of influential digital media professionals, you can find one that you respect and then see what they see on Twitter.  Let’s say you really want to get into digital media strategy or work at a startup – in that case, you probably follow people on Twitter to see what they have to say; maybe Faris and Charlie O’Donnell (Charlie believes in finding the top 20 or 30 people your age in your desired field; this tools makes it easy to identify those people and learn more about them).  That’s great, but now you can take it a step further and read what they’re reading to get a better sense of the pulse of their respective industries.  You can read exactly what they read – so once you decide to email them or meet with them you can have that much more to talk about. This is incredibly useful if you want to build a better base of knowledge and stay abreast of what people in the know are thinking and talking about. If you have a job interview or are meeting with a potential client, you should be reading what they are reading to get a better sense of who they are.

#FOMO

This also helps with the Fear of Missing Out problem (another post on this coming soon) that social networks have highlighted. Social networks have created a real information economy. There is a huge premium placed on simply knowing what is going on.  You can know exactly what your friends around the globe are doing, read reactions that taste makers and thought leaders have on the important issues of the day. With information being readily available online and with the cost of acquiring that information dropping to zero essentially, the onus is on you to actually go out and pay attention. There’s almost no excuse for being uninformed anymore. Love the NBA but missed Game 5 of the Bulls/Heat series?  Sure, you can read what Brian Windhorst tweeted about it, but if you take a quick look at his Twitter subscriptions, you’ll get much more.

Some people might think this feature is a little Single White Female, but I think the usefulness of this feature is phenomenal.

I’ve seen a flood of articles and tweets in the past month about online engagement with brands.  Lots of think pieces and ideas from social media experts (there’s definitely a bubble in the market for social media “experts” – I’d love to see the value they actually add; articles like this make a passionate argument for experts, but let’s not confuse understanding basic terminology with expertise) about how brands should use social media to win over customers.  All of them grapple with one central question – how do we measure success in the online world?

From what I’ve read, success seems to be some mix of engagement and conversion.  I think that success should be measured by engagement (to the extent that engagement can accurately be measured).  Simply focusing on conversion negates the true impact that social media and networking are brilliant at creating.  Social media is more about awareness and instantaneous word of mouth than it is about concrete action (see Gladwell, Malcolm).

The communications landscape is changing – there are more ways than ever to spread a message.  The new systems (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.), however, were not built with companies in mind.  They were built to facilitate communications between people.  And, given the success that these networks have had in capturing an audience, it only makes sense that companies are looking for ways to become involved in that network of personal relationships.  And that those companies are struggling to find their place in this new ecosystem.

But before getting carried away with discussing the intricacies of the networks, it makes more sense to focus on fundamentals.  And the fundamentals of getting people to listen, pay attention, or care haven’t changed.  Yes, there is lots of noise and an ever-increasing set of alternatives that people have at their disposal, but connecting with people is still the same.  And, yes, you do need to know how the social networks function, but you can figure that out in an afternoon (or a 20 minute talk with a 15-year-old).

There is a fascination with the idea of “liking” things on Facebook and what it means to “like” something.  In my opinion, it means very little.  I can go on a “liking” rampage now and “like” 60 different brands in 10 minutes.  There is no magical number of “likes” which automatically makes a brand successful.  The “like” is just getting a foot in the door.  It’s essentially getting someone to sign up for an email newsletter.  The real question is what you do after you have access.  But that question has been around for ages.  It’s nothing new.

If there are “rules” for social media engagement, then I think they’re straight forward.  For me, the best way to organize the thinking is around the key relationship that the brand has with the consumer.

1. Attraction. The starting point.  You have to entice the consumer.  Whether you are doing it digitally or on TV or via print, it’s the same thing.  In some ways, digital attraction is the easiest.  After all, it costs someone almost nothing to “like” a page on Facebook or follow a Twitter feed.  It’s just a click.  But it is an important one because it’s the click that invites you into their network.  And you have to give them a reason to invite you.  So, in a way, the Attraction element is married to Engagement right from the start.  I see lots of ads that have links to a Facebook page, but no one gives me a reason to click on it. And attraction is the component that has the most obvious metric – which is why there is so much focus on it and why people obsess over the number of “likes” or Twitter followers someone has.  Obviously, reach matters, but it’s not the end of the game.
2. Engagement. This is the toughest, but the solutions aren’t novel.  Content.  Content.  Content.  To engage your audience, you have to give them something they find useful.  Product announcements, direct customer support, coupons, behind-the-scenes information. original content, all of your old ads, blog posts from people in your company, user-generated content, etc.  And companies can think outside of the box too.  Facebook pages and Twitter accounts can be used to pass along information to your consumer that isn’t directly related to your product.  That kind of information can engender goodwill with people, positions the brand as more active in the marketplace, and gives the brand more of a personality.  Even better, if you can create content that has the ability to go viral, put it on your Facebook page or Tweet it out.
3. Retention. Getting people to come back to your page or to keep you in their network.  If you have an active engagement strategy, then retention should be no problem.  Part of your retention plan should be to post content regularly – that helps with both engagement and attraction.
4. Conversion. The elephant in the room.  Liking a brand on Facebook  and/or following the brand on Twitter doesn’t put money in the company’s pocket.  But, then again, neither does airing a commercial on television or buying a full-page ad in USA Today.  The real question is whether the purpose of a company using social media should be to make someone buy something on the spot.  The rush to make that the sole goal stems from the experience and original point of search and display ads.  But given the statistics on the number of people who actually click on display ads or the realization that our eyes have become trained to ignore those areas on the page, maybe we should move away from that idea.  The real purpose of the brand Facebook page and the Twitter feed should be to provide information and entertain the potential customer.  Those sorts of activities generate positive externalities and increase the likeliness of (digital) word-of-mouth success.

The thesis underlying all of this is simple and it pre-dates the Internet – understand who you are communicating with and give them a reason to care.  If you can figure out what connects your product to the consumer in the first place, it doesn’t really matter which form of media you are using in the first place.  At that point it becomes more about your content and your company’s message.  Which is where you want the focus to be in the first place.  You don’t need me, or an “expert,” to tell you that.

Everyone’s looking for a bubble.  When you were a kid, bubbles were fun.  Now, they’re big money.  Don’t see a bubble and you could lose your life savings.  See a bubble and bet against it?  Life’s good.

There are lots of debates right now about bubbles.  Is there a higher education bubble?  A social media bubble?  A startup bubble?  Pretty soon people will be speculating about a bubble for bubbles (or, maybe, there’s a bubble under the bubbles).  Also, Bubbles:

Anyway, many very intelligent people have posted their opinions about the subject of bubbles all around the internet.  I’m not going to go through those various thoughts on this site.  Instead, I’ll point out that there was one person who saw this thing coming years ago.  Years.  Who?  Kanye West.

Oh, Varun.  You’ve really lost it this time.  We know you like rap music a lot, but let’s get serious for one minute.  There’s no way that Kanye West knew about a higher education bubble.  Ok, fine.  The evidence is all in his album titles.

College Dropout: Seeing the writing on the wall, Kanye drops out of college.  Why waste your time preparing for the rat race where someone else is your boss?  Doesn’t make a lot of sense.  When you’ve got that much talent and imagination, you might as well, just harness it for yourself instead of letting it serve someone else.  Sonically, this album was raw and pretty much workmanlike.  Kanye was still finding his voice – the raps were not great and the guest stars probably save the thing.  But what do you expect from someone so young?

Late Registration: Some hesitancy from the last position.  Look, it’s just too hard to succeed in the world without a college education.  You need it as a fallback if nothing else.  Be safe, be smart.  Don’t go for broke.  So, Kanye says, fine.  I’ll do it.  I’ll register and I’ll do it your way.  I’ll experiment with your high fallutin thoughts and I’ll bring in Jon Brion to help with my arrangements and instrumentation.  And, it won’t be me, but it’ll be good.

Graduation: I’ve proven myself at this point.  School has made me Stronger and frankly, at this point, you Can’t Tell Me Nothin.  Four years of experimentation made the album a smorgasboard of sounds with no real cohesive message.  Just like anyone leaving school, there’s a sense of “oh man, what now?  what’s out there?  what can guide me at this point?”

808s and Heartbreak: Disillusionment.  Sadness.  Experimentation.  Life in the real world didn’t work out the way you thought it would.  You’re education can’t save you.  No one cares.  Tough times ahead.

And then:

Yo, worldwide financial meltdown.  I’m really happy for you and Imma let you finish, but my meltdown at the VMAs was the greatest meltdown of all time!  Of all time!!

Rock bottom.  Go into hiding.  Apologize to Jay Leno (Jay Leno of all people!).  Everything’s gone to crap.  Nowhere to go but up?  But how do you get there?  Jump back on the safe path?  Or do things your own way?

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: Do it your own way.  Hide yourself for months working on your craft and making yourself better.  Build your brand, get your name out there.  Annihilate guest verses on everyone else’s tracks.  Leak your product on your own website for months.  Give it away.  Build demand.  Iterate.  Experiment.  Believe.  Number one on everyone’s list.  A 10.0 from Pitchfork.  Varun listens to your record, and only your record, for a month straight.  Is that success?  Does success even matter any more?

So, there you have it.  This whole start-up/entrepreneurship/”we don’t need no stinkin’ higher education craze”?  Yeezy’s been teaching us about it for a while.  And like most thing in life, mainstream America has been trying to coopt it from hip hop culture and pass it off as their own.  The original startup?  Roc-A-Fella Records.  Big Homey always leads the way.

Google doesn’t really advertise its products through traditional means. I think it’s a conscious decision on their part – if you’re going to use Google you’re going to use it because you think it’s the best search engine, because it makes your life easier, because it gets you the information you need when you need it. That’s been the bedrock of the company and it has served them well.

Google’s “Parisian Love” ad from the 2010 Superbowl broke the mold for the company and it was mesmerizing. It captivated everyone in the room. I think the beauty of the ad was its simplicity. Showing someone typing their thoughts and questions and the progression of those ideas told a fascinating and touching story. It was an interesting story because it showed how the internet could help you, how you turn to Google with a variety of mundane and important inquiries to help you life. It did a lot to humanize the product – to show that something so powerful that bases its power on formulas and algorithms is, at its core, a product for humans. Think about all the random things you’ve typed into Google. You’ve probably asked Google questions that you haven’t asked another human being. I’d be fascinated to see my search history over the past few years – it’s a map of your life. And that’s the point the ad was making.

So, now Google is pushing its new Chromebook – it’s essentially a netbook with the Chrome browser instead of an operating system.  And with this new introduction, Google has introduced two new ads for Chrome.  And they’re pitch perfect:

What’s wonderful about these ads is that they flipped the perspective from the earlier campaign. Instead of portraying how Google products can help the user, it highlights how the user can use Google products to help others. The ads are ridiculously simple – which highlights the ease of use as the products. But that almost goes unnoticed because of the overwhelming human component of the message (95% of you cried while watching the clips). The first ad, in particular, is brilliant example of cause advertising that seems totally organic and unforced. And the second ad – well, I had that same idea but involved me video taping a message for my future kids on their future birthdays (parts of me are still stuck in the 1980s).

What I love most about the ads is the tagline at the end: the web is what you make of it. Again, so simple. But effective because it reveals a basic truth that we’ve all glossed over. The internet is a utility that we (I certainly) take for granted. And when you use it on a daily basis you lose sight of the amazing potential that it has and the power that it gives to each of us. It Gets Better was literally one man’s idea that has touched thousands, if not millions, of lives. The web is the great equalizer. Levels the playing field between people, between people and institutions, between people and companies, between big companies and small companies. These ads are ultimately selling hope. And that’s what makes them so effective in my opinion.

I debated in high school.

(waiting for you all to get your jokes out of the way)

I loved it.  It forced me to think critically about the world, about cause and effect, and evaluating arguments that I was presented with.  I wasn’t half bad either.

Here’s a quick primer on how high school policy debate works. There is a single topic, called a resolution, that is in place for the year. The topic my junior year was:  The United States should substantially alter its foreign policy towards Russia. One team, the affirmative side, comes up with a plan to fulfill the resolution. That plan states the status quo, states the harm done by the status quo, and shows how the affirmative team’s initiative can solve for that harm. Example:  The United States should ban the market for mail order brides from Russia to decrease sex crimes and the trafficking of women.

The negative team then has to essentially poke holes in the affirmative team’s plan. There are many ways to do this. They can point out that the harm being claimed actually doesn’t exist or is exaggerated, they can claim that the affirmative team’s plan doesn’t actually solve anything, etc. They can also claim that even if the affirmative team’s plan works, it will trigger a variety of disadvantages that outweigh the benefit of the plan.

One of the other methods the negative team can use is to critique the underpinnings of the affirmative team’s ideas. Whereas attacking the plan or presenting disadvantages requires the judge to weigh things in a sort of utilitarian mindset (i.e. what’s worse – sex trafficking or instituting a policy that pisses off Russia and leads to trade embargoes by them?), a critique pushes the argument to a different level – more focused on discourse and philosophy.

Anyway, this is just a prelude to my point (which I will get to soon (and they were a way for me to talk about my glory days)).  My junior year someone had a plan stating that to meet the resolution the United States should urge NATO to grant membership to Russia.  They only used the word NATO – never North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The negative team ran one argument only – something called syntactic abridgment (see bottom of page 5).  Basically, by only using the acronym NATO as opposed to the long form, the affirmative team was destroying discourse and purposefully repressing undesired questions about the organization’s motives. Complicated argument and I didn’t completely get it then. But the crux of it is that by using abbreviations for certain things, your brain essentially misses the point and a great deal of information never gets unpacked.

I thought about this while reading Time magazine’s issue on bin Laden. One page said something along the lines of, “The man died on 5/1 but his ideology died soon after 9/11.”  And I thought for a moment about the term 9/11 and how/why we use it. Obviously it’s useful as a short hand and everyone knows that it stands for one of the darkest acts humanity has known.  But using a few numbers to describe the actions and emotions of that day don’t even approach painting a complete picture.  But using it is also a salve – a way to talk about a painful event without unpacking all the emotions that go along with it. I wonder if later generations will fully understand the meaning behind it.  I don’t think that there is anything wrong with using the abbreviation – I just think it is interesting that the abbreviation can really hide the meaning of what it stands for.  The closest examples I can think of are Pearl Harbor and Holocaust.  I think Holocaust is sufficiently powerful because it has no context outside of WWII.  Pearl Harbor has a little less resonance – I’d bet that a fair amount of young Americans aren’t fully aware of what it was.  I think another example of this is the bombings in England in 2005 – the Brits dubbed them the 7/7 bombings.  That shorthand has absolutely 0 resonance for me – mainly because it had no direct impact on me.  In that instance, a more specific name would probably carry greater meaning (not saying this to diminish what happened there in the slightest).

I thought about how this impacts the way we communicate now. Attention spans are shorter and mediums place an emphasis on quick messaging.  Now, more than ever, snap judgments are in vogue and we strive to make instant connections. But at what cost?  Instant impressions are certainly very beneficial (see Blink), but only insofar as there is a real recognition of the underlying meaning.

To celebrate Mother’s Day, my family spent the day in downtown Detroit.  We had a great brunch at a restaurant in one of the three new casinos that Detroit welcomed almost 4 years ago.  After that, we went down to the Riverwalk near the Renaissance Center and walked around for a little while.  Spending time in those two places, you’d be hard-pressed to realize that there is something wrong with the city.  Until you realize that they are oases in a metropolis that has largely been abandoned.

We missed a turn to park at the casino and found ourselves on a block with abandoned houses.  Gorgeous old homes with plywood boarding up their windows and weeds choking their lawns.  Within a span of 30 feet you see the grave problems facing the many of the metropolitan areas of this country.  Bright shiny new buildings on one side of the street; foreclosures and vacants on the other.  The old houses and office buildings are beautiful – and haunting.  You imagine that just half a century ago they were enmeshed in a vibrant and active community.  Now, the homes are being torn down at an astonishing rate.  In an effort to save city resource and wipe the slate clean, Dave Bing, Detroit’s mayor, is attempting to tear down 10,000 houses during his first term.  Crews work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to make this happen.  But what happens after all those houses have been torn down?

The casinos were supposed to save Detroit.  The stadiums (Ford Field, Comerica Park) were supposed to save Detroit.  But it hasn’t happened.  Band-aids on a broken leg.  Not even coming close to solving the fundamental problem.  The American economy left the city of Detroit behind.  We used to be a manufacturing society.  Now we’re a service based economy.  Workers with basic skills are unnecessary.  (Credit for those last three sentences goes to David Simon).

But there’s hope.  Detroit presents a fascinating opportunity for this country.  It allows us to answer the question of how we would build an American city from scratch in the 21st century.  The city should do everything it can to attract next generation businesses to the city.  Why can’t Detroit be an innovation center for the 21st century?  The car companies should embrace a move in that direction.  The University of Michigan’s Business School should make it a priority to spearhead efforts to launch entrepreneurial campaigns in Detroit and get money circulating back in the city (Wayne State has started something similar).  It’s an amazing opportunity for the school and it’s alumni network.  The city and state should be providing tax breaks for startups and clean tech companies.  If Boulder can become a tech community, why can’t Detroit?  Undoubtedly, there are smart people in Detroit and the surrounding areas.  They just flee to other locales because there is little opportunity.  With sites like AngelList, maybe entrepreneurs with ideas can link up with money and stay in Detroit.  In the past you needed a factory and serious infrastructure to make an impact.  Now you need a laptop, wifi, and an idea.  Once you get some businesses to stay in the area, you can attract all the ancillary services that come as part of the package.  Restaurants, bars, etc.

There’s still the issue of what to do with all of the workers whose skills don’t match up with the direction our economy is moving in.  I heard someone say that ours is not a society that values continued education.  Well, that should change.  Instead of spending money rebuilding the physical infrastructure of the city, dedicate a large portion of it to retraining the workforce.  This will be a huge uphill battle because it’s not just work skills that need to be taught but basic literacy.  As a stop gap, perhaps urban farming is an option.

I know most of this is obvious and has been said before more eloquently by many other people.  And what I’ve written here is just a component, a small part of a larger picture where a lot of things have to break right in order for recovery to take hold.  But if the city and state can provide tax breaks to film companies to come to Detroit, then they can invest in businesses that are more permanent.

Having lived in New York for the last 7 years, I’ve had my fair share of smart-ass comments and sideways looks about Detroit.  But seeing the city crystallized things for me.  The city and surrounding region have moved along the emotional spectrum from despair to defiance and now to some semblance of promise.  It needs to be nurtured and pushed forward.

Detroit will always be the Motor City.  There’s no reason it can’t help drive the country forward now.

Last one from the old blog:

The web wasn’t for everyone when it started. It was one way communication. You went to a company’s website and that provided you information. You couldn’t talk back in any meaningful way (unless you were in an AOL chatroom – and that could end up getting you sent straight to jail). Being overly simplistic, that was Web 1.0.

Then came high speed Internet. And social networking sites. And blogging. And micro-blogging (Twitter). And sharing applications. This gave individuals a voice. Instead of consuming content from an entity, you could read what your friends posted. Think you’re smarter and more interesting than your friends? Well, then post whatever you want. Everyone became a publisher and you could rely on your friends and people you trust to put interesting things on the web or point you towards what you would be interested in. This was the democratization of the internet. Being overly simplistic, this was Web 2.0.

Now we’re in an interesting new phase. Those companies and businesses that dominated web 1.0? Well, they’re trying to find a foothold in this brave new world. Who cares what Ford has to tell you about its cars when you can use the internet and your social graph to get information that you trust about the new Ford Focus. Here’s the rub – in the Web 3.0 world, businesses need to become your friend. They need to be part of your social graph. If not, they’re playing catch up. I’ve heard some businesses reject Twitter because it is “off-brand.” That’s nonsense and it’s bad business. If your customers are on Twitter or any other social site they are or might be talking about you. And you need to be an active participant in that conversation. We’ve reached that point where brands and companies need to have personalities. And if they don’t craft them, then they are subject to how people perceive them. This is the Web 3.0 world. Companies figuring out how to become part of your social graph.

The beauty about this new world though is that the companies have to cater to you. And the effective ones do. They know that they need to engage and be honest and be out there. That’s what people appreciate right now.

My friend, Jim Weber, has a company that knows how to do this. He runs Lost Lettermen, a site dedicated to college sports that initially grew out of a desire to find out what happened to college stars of yesterday (seriously, never play the “where did they go to school?” game with Jim. He’s the king). Anyway, Lost Lettermen has a Twitter account. And it’s great. Not everything it links to is Lost Lettermen content. But that’s besides the point. Jim posts anything and everything that he finds interesting about college sports. He’s essentially a curator for important college sports news.  And because he’s been effective at doing this I rely on the Lost Lettermen Twitter feed to find out what’s going on with college sports. He’s expanded a niche site into something broader by using social media.

Basically, tweet or die.

One more from the old blog.  My friend Rick Desai re-posted this on his blog - Just Rick - a very well written and thoughtful site on a variety of issues including startups and social media (among other things).