Lessons from Les Paul

Story has it that when Les Paul was in a severe car accident in 1948, he asked his doctor to set his arm permanently in the guitar-playing position. He did this out of admirable dedication and passion for his craft, and it served him well as he continued to play guitar into his 90's.

(It's striking how little has changed)

Is your brand prepared to make a permanent stance in the market? Is your product ready to be synonymous with its unique purpose? If not, it might be time to re-evaluate what you stand for.

Come Together: Community Musings

"It is not enough to create a flag. You must have a nation willing to follow it."- Patrick Hanlon, Primal Branding

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the Good Ideas Salon on community management. There we heard from Matt Stinchcomb of Etsy, Jen Burton of Digg, and Heather Champ of Flickr, moderated by Mia Quagliarello of YouTube.

Much of the conversation reminded me of Hanlon's quote. Matt said that your community may very well be your brand, so you must make it magnetic. Jen of Digg also spoke to this point, noting that the people are the product. As a result, you have to look at all of the different behaviors of your community. For example, visitors to Etsy may be there to shop, browse, sell, or communicate. Visitors to Flickr may be there for inspiration, to learn, or to get help.

There are many online communities (and brands) that could do well to think of reaching out to the folks who participate on their site in some of these different ways. For example, while you can go to a certain artist's page on Etsy, as a browser or purchaser, you can't promote your favorite artists, share your "wishlist," or create a gallery of your purchases. For all practical purposes, these users are outside of the community. Some of your passionate consumers will then try to create the conversation without the brand; Lauren Puglia of Undercurrent recently posted about her purchases from new favorite artists on her blog, but was not able to share that instantly with the Etsy community. While Lauren still helped promote those artists, she wasn't given the platform to have a voice in that community. Matt had mentioned that you must give your community the tools they need to self-organize, and speaking to him after the panel, he did say that personal space on the site, or profiles, are on the list of innovations to come.

So what can your site or brand do to expand the community and grow as a product? Definitely an interesting exercise in self-inventory.

Other great takeaways from the panel:

_ the first 48 hours after a change likely won't be the ultimate feeling of the community, nor their ultimate attitude toward the change, and there will always be people who don't like change (Heather)

_ early adopters are fickle and you have to let them go--it's their nature (Jen)

_ treat your members as ambassadors and invite them to bring their existing communities to your site (Heather)

_ when trying to pave the way for involvement, think about how you can make your community more like a book club than a bar...no one can get anywhere if they try to shout to an entire bar, but they'll want to share and will be more likely to have meaningful conversation at a book club (Jen)

Brands as Discography

I was thinking last week about guilty pleasure music. Not necessarily the artists you wish you had hidden in an alternative iTunes library when someone's looking through your music, but the songs by the bands you love that just aren't the typical. Maybe it's when they come out with a record that just isn't quite as powerful as previous ones. Maybe it's when they try a concept album, against their better judgement. Whatever it is, we often stand by our favorite artists even when they go for something simple, pop-y, or just fun for the sake of being fun.

Really, this makes a lot of sense. We often appreciate music by an artist based on the emotional connection we have with them. As a result, we appreciate the journey, the deviation from the usual. These pieces might not always stand alone, or even fairly represent the overall discography, but we appreciate them all the same. (Um, "Honey Pie"? We love it because we feel like we’re seeing new sides of the people we already love, cherish, and admire.)

The same goes for brands, and this is a big discovery for me personally. I always like the cleanliness, the centric nature of brands that stick to their pillars of truth. I have a hard time accepting ad campaigns built purely on “joy” or “goodwill” for the company. To me, strategy has always been essential, and every piece has to be on the same dart board as your brand truth. But like our favorite diversions from the typical in our music, I’m suddenly floored by the idea that that’s what I might love about individual campaigns, and our consumers have some of these same reactions.

I know I'm probably late to the game on this one, but I've always heard the arguments without understanding. Hopefully this helps a few of you out there as well.

What do my contextual ads say about me?

You'd think with all the information one could get on me through my internet usage, it would have been clear that I'm a gal. The placement with this story is just too perfect to ignore.

The Kids Are Alright

Before I delve too much into all that I've learned these last few days at TWTRCon09 and the Ypulse Mash-up, I need to start with highlighting just one piece of the puzzle when we look at our communication with youth:

A whole lot of people just don't understand or respect them.

Now before I get a whole bunch of marketing and advertising folks jumping up to prove how much they've done to authentically reach youth, know that I'm not necessarily talking about you. I'm talking about the general public: anchors, teachers, authority figures, the check-out lady and the mailman. 

I was deeply disappointed to read an article today about a Manvel, TX high school teacher named Cesar Flores who appeared to be teaching while intoxicated, and attempted to kiss a female student in class. The students in the classroom were 10th and 11th graders, who contacted district police to address their concerns. The spokesperson for the Alvin Independent School District, Shirley Brothers, then spoke to the media about the accusations:

"The good thing is the kiddos noticed something was wrong and reported it. We're proud of the youngsters for reporting something was wrong."

Kiddos? Youngsters? Noticed something was wrong and reported it? Pardon my language, but NO SHIT they noticed something was wrong. These are not children; these are young adults learning about how to live in an adult world, and they were faced with a very serious, very adult threat. And while Brothers is right--they did respond correctly to the situation--she could not have come off more condescending or more surprised at their success.

The truth of the matter is that youth are thrown into adult situations earlier and earlier (and admittedly, some of that is by their own doing, but that's neither here nor there.) But when they respond admirably and with maturity in a difficult situation, let's remember that we should reward them in the same way: with admiration and as peer adults.

Full article can be found here.

OMG, digi=IRL, rite?

"If you're a newspaper publisher and you think the solution is a digital facsimile of the analog version, you need to re-think." - Ed Cotton, from his post about the News Corporation starting to charge for online content

This is a fantastic quote, and not just because it succinctly calls out newspapers' digital stumbles, but it speaks to the larger issues facing the media and advertising/marketing industries with the growing role of interactive. Digital is a whole new ball game, and we need to recognize that we can't just simply take what worked in other mediums and assume it will have the same success digitally. If I may build upon the idea Ed brings up in this quote, I'd like to share a few additional guidelines: 

• Static web ads shouldn't just be print ads put online. Work with the medium, take advantage of the placement, the shape, the size.
• Similarly, rich media shouldn't just be your commercial on a digital platform. No one likes to open a web page and be bombarded by a 30-second commercial. We are social beings--we want to interact! Engage us. 
• If you ARE putting up a commercial say before a video clip online, know the appropriate length. When we watch a 60 minute TV show, only 14 minutes of it is allowed to be commercials. If you're attaching your :30 commercial to a 1:30 video, you're pushing your luck.
• When folks come to watch a television program online, its much more of a conscious activity. There's no channel flipping, no waiting around for your program to begin. Recognize this different level of engagement and leverage it. And please please please, don't show us the same ad over and over at every commercial break. On a TV we can just change channels...online we're stuck with it, and I believe the potential benefits of repetition will be outweighed by the feelings of ill will.

There's gotta be other applicable scenarios. Any others weighing on your minds??

Yooouuutuuube and Other Oddities

I remember when I first learned about YouTube, I didn't think it would catch on. I didn't think people would take the time to CREATE videos and I certainly didn't understand WHY they'd even have the desire. Sure, I had seen videos online. But All Your Base Are Belong To Us wasn't on a video-sharing platform, so why would we ever need one?

Well, clearly I was wrong.

We love the creation, the attention, and the relative fame. In an era of Idol, reality TV shows, and YouTube, we've learned to recognize the "easy way" to fame and appreciation. With YouTube in particular, we were introduced to a whole new area of social currency, and everyone who was anyone seemed to jump on board.

Fast-forward to April 28th, 2009. An independent programmer/designer out of NY named David quietly released Yooouuutuuube, a kind of kaleidoscopic visual remix of any and all youtube videos based on each sequential frame. (For a great post about the details that make up Yooouuutuuube and an interesting discussion about compelling data mining on this platform, check out Misentropy's blog.) I got a chance to ask David a few questions via email and learned a few interesting bits about Yooouuutuuube and it's success.

I saw that you link to the original YouTube video. Are you affiliated with YouTube?

No, I am not affiliated in any way whatsoever with YouTube.

In your own words, what is the purpose of YooouuuTuuube?

Yooouuutuuube doesn't really have a purpose.

What kind of traction have you been getting? I found out about the site on Twitter (thanks, @nguyenduong!) and a friend of mine found out on Digg. Do you track hits? Unique visitors? Time spent?

The site has received 376,670 unique visitors since it launched. The average time spent on the site is 2 minutes and 30 seconds. This means I have wasted roughly 1.8 years of humanity's time.

I couldn't help but laugh. This was pretty much the kind of answers I'd expect from the creator of a program like Yooouuutuuube. But this overwhelming success of a small, independent project definitely points out a few lessons for us:

• As consumers, the mash-up/remix phenomenon remains, with more opportunities out there to be realized. Now if only David could find a way to monetize...
• We're drawn towards platforms that facilitate our own creations. Since Yooouuutuuube allows you to choose how many rows and columns and what kind of effects you see when it plays your video, we get the feeling that WE'VE created this incredible eyegasm, though in truth we owe it all to YouTubex3's infrastructure and programming. 
• Programs that don't require extra experience, knowledge, or equipment will grow far more quickly than those with more barriers to entry. David made it incredibly simple--what can your programs do to remove some of these barriers?
• Misentropy reminds us that we can use YouTubex3 for data as well as entertainment. This means that our innovations may have secondary benefits. I'm reminded of the box of Baking Soda sitting in my cupboard right now. How many boxes do you think they've sold based on its alternate benefit? And having discovered the alternate benefit, what did they do? They advertised it.

I'll leave you with one of my favorite iterations of YouTubex3--the Alice Remix Remix. Warning: Contact high is imminent upon viewing. It's about 2 minutes long but will play on repeat.

Try your own at www. yooouuutuuube.com and let me know what you think. What else can we learn from YouTubex3?