Experience Manifesto

Some Updated Thoughts About Privacy

UPDATE: Just came across this from the The Washington Post Mark Zuckerberg - From Facebook, answering privacy concerns with new settings. He says some very nice things, but I just don't think they can create a service that allows the users to opt out of info sharing and remain free.

Here's his key points:

• You have control over how your information is shared.
• We do not share your personal information with people or services you don't want.
• We do not give advertisers access to your personal information.
• We do not and never will sell any of your information to anyone.
• We will always keep Facebook a free service for everyone.

(I guess time will tell if Facebook can deliver everything it promises.)

Lots of discussions lately about online privacy lately, fueled in great part to missteps by Facebook and what they've been doing with user data. People are getting worried about what happens with their data and really, if it's even still their data. And with more and more data being put into the cloud, we're certainly be asking this question for a while. To be clear, I'm talking about information about adults. Once you start talking about kids, you need a very clear privacy policy in place.

Do people not realize that companies have been gathering information about them and selling that information to other companies this for years? When I worked for the Arts Council back in Orlando in the mid-80's, I would call a list broker and tell them what I was looking for and they would get it for me. If I needed people making over $100K/year, who lived in a certain zip code and who attended the symphony and I'd get a list.

I wrote this in a 2001 piece called "The Real Privacy Issue:"

See, I think we're dealing with the wrong question. While we certainly need to protect privacy online, I think that we should be focusing our efforts on how can we bring a value to the consumer that translates into a better online experience? What will make the consumer feel as though everyone just called their name when they walked in? How can we create an experience where the owner comes out to greet each visitor and thanks them for being there, while pointing out that they know what the consumer likes?

Right now, we all know that the focus of gathering information from the consumer online is for our value, not their's. Sure, we pretend it's for them, but everyone knows better. Is it really a consumer value proposition that we can give them targeted ads? Is getting unsolicited e-mails about products that are similar to something they've purchased a value proposition for the consumer? No, of course not. It's a value proposition for us. If you look at how we generate revenue online, how much of it comes from the gathering, use and sale of consumer information?

For decades credit card companies and others have been tracking and compiling information about where we go and what we buy. Use your loyalty card when you shop and there's another level of information that's collected and compiled about you. And maybe it's just been happening so long that we don't think about it any more, but they've been selling that information for years. Remember, I was buying it back in the mid-80's. What's really interesting about this issue is that we actually pay for the service of credit cards and yet we still allow them to sell our data. Not hearing many calls to boycott Mastercard or Visa. Well, not for selling our data at any rate.

And I know that we've gotten really used to be business model of free, but I don't think it's sustainable. Eventually, the business model of free runs up against the business model of I have to pay my rent. Things have to be paid for. So, either sites like Facebook will need to move to a subscription model or they're going to need to make money by selling advertising. They can't support themselves by giving away a service to 400 million people for free.

There certainly seems to be a generational divide on the issue of privacy. During a presentation at my daughters school about school supplied computers, one of the 6th graders remarked that there really wasn't privacy any more, so why worry about it. Had a great discussion 2 years ago at SXSW about whether it was a generational thing or where you were in life. The same 6th grader who says privacy doesn't matter today might be a 40 year old in the future who is concerned.

To a great extent, this free issue was created probably 15 - 20 years ago, when the internet was in its infancy and frankly most content providers didn't see the internet as a viable delivery tool. They were thinking was what the hell, for the 10 people who use the internet, sure, we'll give our stuff away for free. They didn't have the foresight to see what the future could hold and once you start to give things away for free, it's pretty hard to stop.

There's an old expression that there's no such things as a free lunch and that's still true today. Are you willing to pay for Facebook? Can we really keep expecting online companies to give away their product forever? Eventually, someone has to pay for that lunch.

So I'm torn right now. I'm not willing to pay for Facebook and that means I have to be willing to give them a revenue path somewhere else. If Facebook offered a paid version where all of your data was kept away from advertisers, would you do that? If so, how much would you pay for that?

I'm not really sure we can continue to complain about lack of privacy when we're unwilling to pay for the service. So maybe that's the solution for Facebook. Give people the option of paying and see how people react then.

Social Networks Capitalize on Facebook Privacy Fears - NYTimes.com.

The Real Privacy Issue- Pool Summer 2001 - Polinchock's Ponderings.

Olympus Pen Commercial

Watching TV tonight before getting into bed and saw this commercial for the new Olympus Pen camera. It's a pretty standard camera commercial until the end. Love the idea of using the product itself to make the commercial.

May #140conf NYC Meetup - #140Conf: The State of Now

A couple of events that I'm attending next week, the first being the #140 NYC Meetup on Monday night. Jeff Pulver always has excellent speakers and a good crowd.

The post-#140conf NYC Meetup

An opportunity to discuss the emerging Real-Time Internet and the effects on business. A gathering for friends of #140conf to get together and discuss issues of the day.

Special thanks to MetLife for sponsoring this Meetup.

6:00 PM- Registration / Networking

6:30 PM- Speakers start

Speakers include:

• Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) - The Connected "Me"
• Liz Pullen (@nwjerseyliz) -
• Mo Krochmal (@krochmal) - The Class of 2015
• Owen Stone (@Ohdoctah) -

8:00 PM- Wrap up / Networking

May #140conf NYC Meetup - #140Conf: The State of Now (New York, NY) - Meetup.com.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

Flavorpill has a list of the The 10 Most Unconventional Movie Trailers of the Past Decade and this is their bonus trailer. Watch it through the end, it really captures the spirit of trailers.

Didn't think all of the trailers were that unconventional, but some of them really did the trick. I'm still trying to figure out if the Cloverfield trailer was better then the actual movie. And what's up with that sequel? Take a look at all of them and decide for yourself, but you'll get a good chuckle out of this one.

Flavorwire » The 10 Most Unconventional Movie Trailers of the Past Decade.

Paid Brand Conversations to Rise

Maybe I'm starting to channel George Parker, but articles like this seem to be turning me into a curmudgeon. "Sponsored conversations?" Folks, if you pay someone to talk about your product, that's called advertising. But since calling something advertising is bad these days, people are working hard to put it into social media terminology, which we all think is good.

And this is one of the problems with the advertising business. They see everything through the existing model of advertising rather then exploring the emerging tools through a new POV. So, even though we've paid people to talk about products for years, now we call it sponsored conversations and pretend it's new and shiny.

Just renaming things don't make them new. And it's clear that the advertising biz seems to have the ability to turn anything into traditional advertising. While there are a few examples of agencies and clients creating something more, most of our industry falls back on the traditional, the common and the known.

Call it what you want, but paying people to talk about your product is nothing more then good, old-fashioned advertising.

More brands will compensate bloggers and social media users in an attempt to generate chatter about their products, a new study found.

PQ Media said such "sponsored conversations" -- which compensate social media users for discussing brands' products -- grew to $46 million in 2009, a 14 percent increase from a year earlier. Even so, that figure represented a tiny chunk (2.7 percent) of the word-of-mouth marketing category, according to PQ.

The firm now forecasts what it terms "social media sponsorship spending" to rise 26 percent this year to $56.8 million.

Brands are still more likely to compensate content creators with free products rather than cash. Non-cash sponsored conversation campaigns accounted for 78 percent of spending, with cash programs making up the rest. PQ found that cash programs rose 37 percent in 2009, which it attributes to brands looking to reach specific influentials rather than large consumer sectors.

Services like Izea and Ad.ly match up social media content creators with brands. Some celebrities have included paid tweets in their sponsorship agreements. Kim Kardashian has reportedly garnered $10,000 to update Twitter on behalf of advertisers. The Hollywood star has over 3.5 million followers.

The question of paid posts in social media has caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission, which late last year issued guidelines that require content creators to disclose any "material connection" they have with advertisers.

The requirements have not impeded industry growth, according to PQ. In fact, the researcher concluded the FTC spotlight has bolstered it. Consumer package-goods companies are most active in the area, accounting for a quarter of spending, followed by food and beverage, health and beauty, media/entertainment and technology and telecommunications.

PQ concluded the nascent area suffers from a lack of national scale and fragmentation among many providers.

Paid Brand Conversations to Rise.

ITP Spring Show 2010

Described as "A festival of interactive sight, sound and technology from the student artists and innovators at ITP", the Interactive Telecommunications Program show is one of those shows I always make time to attend. Sydney usually goes with me and watching her play with things gives me a better sense of what's cool. I'm planning on being there Monday afternoon and may be there Sunday as well, so holler if you're going to be there too. I'll review the show here next week for those that can't make it.

ITP SPRING SHOW 2010 (NYU) from ITP Video on Vimeo.

ITP Spring Show 2010.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

I'm sure you all know the story of the blind men and the elephant. If not, here's a brief description from Wikipedia:

In various versions of the tale, a group of blind men (or men in the dark) touch an elephant to learn what it is like. Each one touches a different part, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then compare notes on what they felt, and learn they are in complete disagreement. The story is used to indicate that reality may be viewed differently depending upon one's perspective.

I was out walking the dogs today and this image popped into my mind. I was thinking about the ad industry at the time and the various elements all vying for attention. I hear people talk about how brands can't survive without this or that and it seems at times that we're all blind, feeling our way around the brand. One person only sees social media, the next only traditional media, the next only digital, a fourth only retail and so on. But not enough people are seeing the whole picture.

For example, social media is clearly hot right now and certainly there are brands that are using social media very well. But, for example, I'm not sure all brands should be on Twitter or will have fan pages. They are fine products when you need them, but for example, how many people would friend Preparation H? Would you follow them on Twitter?

When people ask me to define "brand experience," I say that it's everything you do. And thanks to tools like Twitter and Facebook, everything you do is even more important today. Deliver a bad experience and the whole world knows, right then and there.

It's comforting to see more agencies add strategic, big picture thinkers to their ranks and brands need to start adding more big picture thinkers as well. Someone needs to be looking at everything you do, the big picture. Looking at how all of the pieces fit together to create one, consistent brand experience.

What part of the elephant do you see? Are you able to see that there are other parts? Do you understand how all of those parts work together to create something better? Brand managers need to stop seeing only the one part and they need to start seeing the whole picture. In the future, that's what brands will live & die on.

Blind men and an elephant - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Image from Mang Ren Mo Xiang (Blind Men Touching an Elephant).

Do You Show or Tell?

I was reminded of this story last night while discussing the role of doing what you say vs. just saying it. My wife & I drive a Subaru that we really like. In fact, we've had several of them and will probably get another one again. One of the things that I love about it is driving in the snow. Before we got our first Outback, we had a Pathfinder and our Subaru's have always been better in snow then the Pathfinder.

When we got out current Outback three years ago, we picked it up just as snow started to fall. We were getting one of those great snow storms that I love to drive in. So, we took a drive up into Paramus and route 17, where all the car dealers are located. The snow was a few inches deep and, as is the case when we get snow in New Jersey, there were lots of cars stopped on the side of the road stuck.

Lots of the stores were closing early and employees were heading home. That made sense for most companies along route 17, but one struck me as strange. The Land Rover dealership. I mean, why should they have to go home early because of snow. It's a car that can drive Mt Kilimanjaro and it can't drive in a few inches of snow on a flat road like 17?

I'm guessing that the reason the employees had to leave early is because most of them don't own or drive a Land Rover. And I know that's a pretty big challenge for a company like Land Rover, making sure all of their employees actually use their product.

But I also thought that someone at the dealership should've been smart enough to realize that lots of folks were stuck on the street in the snow. They should've filled up one of those big coffee urns, put it in a Land Rover and then delivered coffee to all of the people stranded along the road. It would bring the Land Rover message to life.

Telling is easy. Showing is much harder. Do you look for ways to show instead of tell every day? You'd be surprised at the impact that you can have when you change from tell to show.

Darth Vader Helps You Get There

Tom Tom has been doing celebrity voices for a while and now they've added Star Wars characters to the mix. Love this video showing the behind the scenes of Darth (can I call him that or do I need to call him Mr. Vader) in the voice-over booth.

TomTom: 'Bear Left, to the Dark Side' - mediabistro.com: AgencySpy.