Incito MentisA blog by Syed Abdul Karim

I am probably very wrong but in my opinion there is a huge downside to Web 2.0. Despite the numerous tools and filters available one can easily get carried away in this vast ocean of knowledge and data that is sweeping at currents faster than those that flow beneath Antartica!

Why do I say that? For the last two years I have been swimming in this ocean supposedly prepared. As a strategist it’s critical to keep a lookout for all the trends that could shape our future. Around 2002, we saw Web 2.0 emerge through tools like weblogs (commonly known as blogs) and RSS. Social Networking sites like Orkut and Myspace began to spring up as well. People could now engage in a dialogue, broadcast their point-of-view to the world and create their own content like any publisher. This was also the time when BlackBerry made email access ubiquitous and the buzzword of this era was “Information Overload”. In early 2009 Clay Shirky, a new media professor at NYU described the phenomenon not as a case of Information Overload but as a failure of filters.

Triggered by this thought I began my journey through this vast mountain of data. I setup Google Reader for my RSS feeds, neatly creating folders for all my topics of interests, from advertising and branding to telecom and trends. I searched the web for leading content across all Web 2.0 channels and over the years built a rich feed of content. I was an early adopter on social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook learning to divide and define the use for each. Joined the bandwagon of the “One with the Most Followers on Twitter is King” and soon realized the fallacy of this notion. Used Twitter lists to filter the relevant stuff again dividing them by my topics of interests and context – from family and friends, news, celebrities to my professional lists focusing on branding, planning and telecom to name a few! With the iPhone things became even simpler (or more complicated depending on how you see it!). After trying out a plethora of apps for feeds and tweets I settled with a few, checking in at least once every hour across platforms. I lost many followers as I would overtake the feed of newcomers by tweeting at a rate of one tweet a minute, sometimes even more! Eventually I learnt how to space out and manage tweets more professionally by using platforms like HootSuite.

The end result! I felt great. The dopamine kept kicking in. I felt like a guru on everything! From the latest news around the world to all those crazy memes taking over the web, I was in the know. Be it technology updates to what was happening in the ever-evolving world of social media to blog posts on all topics related to marketing and brand communications. I was smoking away on this illusive and addictive drug called “knowzac” (not really but you get the point). Having abandoned passive media like TV and newspapers, thinking they were for old timers and geeks I was riding the new media wave, feeling cool that I was in full control of what I consumed and when! (Or so it seemed…)

Then it hit me! I had cascaded from a being a content creator to a blatant consumer of content, sucking on everything that came my way taking out no time to analyze, think or contribute an original perspective. I learnt that even in the world of information and knowledge the plague of consumerism is a force to reckon with. My openness to consuming content from a wide variety of sources was driven by this belief that creativity is best enabled through a rich and diverse base of knowledge. If an idea is simply a fresh connection of two or more known thoughts then the depth of the pool is likely to create bigger, fresher ideas! What happened on the way was a halt to content creation and very limited critical thinking. I was reading more than I ever did in my life but I simply was not thinking enough because most content was very short and too diverse to really make sense of as a whole. However the satisfaction of reading lots of things and then sharing them online kept me away from doing the stuff that really counted.

How will I change my behavior going forward? I will try and do the following:

• Focus More: I see two ways of going about this. I would have to curate my lists and feeds even more and get rid of anyone or anything that is deviating me from my subjects of focus or make a mental note not to get carried away with interesting but nonconstructive blabber at least from a professional standpoint (not always easy to do though).
• Be Proactive: Choose a topic, dig deeper and explore enough to be able to come out with a distinct point of view. Be the one choosing what to read and get further into rather than vice versa.
• Think More: Even if serendipity is allowed whatever that comes across should be thought over, reflected upon and then internalized through a point of view. There should clearly by some thinking done after coming across anything new and interesting rather than just reading through it just for the sake of it.

I believe perhaps that by keeping the above points in mind I would be able to better utilize my time to not only gain knowledge but also to apply it meaningfully to my work. Hope this helps you too. If you have some learning and experiences of your own that you would like to share I am all ears (or eyes in this case!)

What better day to write this post than a Friday! You know Friday? The day before Saturday and the day after Thursday! Well in case you have not heard Rebecca Black has taken the web by a storm through her lesson on the days of the week, among other things. For a 13-year old she has gone from unknown to infamous in a matter of days. Her music video for the song “Friday” has raked up more than 80 million views at the time of this writing and a record 1.6 million “Dislikes” beating the old record holder Justin Beiber. Besides YouTube Rebecca Black kept trending on Twitter for a full week like there was nothing else going on in the world!

Among the many ways to get famous this is certainly not one of them. Besides the anger and disgust this video has arisen it has also created a lot of ridicule and humor that was simply too good not to share and that is probably the only reason I decided to write about this. Now the question that perplexes me is whether to show you the fun stuff first or the original video. Should I even bother to embed the original video or leave it as a link? The song Friday can have this effect on people I guess. Oh my friends are here and I have not even finished my cereal! Anyways I think I have figured it out. Watch the original video first (I hope you can watch it to the end) before watching the parodies to truly appreciate them

Rebecca Black – Friday (Official Video)

Unofficial Sequel to Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” – Saturday

And my most favorite – Thursday by the Great Conan O’Brien

Last year was an amazing year for social media. We were starting to see maturity in the way brands were engaging consumers and keeping the dialogue alive. There was a lot of experimentation and risk-taking and some of it paid off in a big way. This post is not about one of them.

I believe it is always great to seek out inspiration and look at the better ways of doing things but at the same time it is wise to look at failure and seek lesson from it. I think the word failure is probably too strong a word for the ‘man in the box’ I think the right word is strange. Go ahead and ‘Google’ it. You won’t find much (all you would get is ‘Man in the Box’ a song by Alice in Chains). It is one of those social media ideas that is lost in obscurity.

What is the idea? Man in the Box was basically Tim Shaw from BBC locked in a box (more like a container) for 30 days in a location that had some relevance to his life. He was to be delivered food twice a day from an opening in the ‘box’ and his only interaction to the outside world was through a one-way live webcam for 12 hours a day. That’s 360 hours of non-stop entertainment! And in case you missed the live transmission you didn’t get a nice 15 minute edit of the fun parts! No way. What you get is a repeat telecast of the entire 12 hours during the other half the day. Is this breathtaking TV or what!

And if the fast-paced drama was not enough, you get to win a big fat reward for your labor. What would that be? Find Tim, free him from his misery and win £30,000. Not bad for playing detective on Google Maps. Really! Well how? You got one clue a day about his location and you are to use those clues to piece together his exact location! Sounds like fun? Perhaps.

Why were they doing all this? This was an attempt to generate money for ‘Help for Heroes’, a charity for wounded UK soldiers. How much money did they generate? No idea! But I can tell you this – Tim Shaw was not found after 30 days. He had to bear the misery of his own confinement with no result! One good thing came out of it though. They were £30,000 richer at the end of the campaign. Money that could be used for the charity itself.

So what can we learn from it? I believe this idea missed a number of crucial essentials which make for a great social media campaign.

• No entertainment value – I think in a world where ‘content is king’ play value is a starting point not the end. There was simply no entertainment value. I can’t imagine spending 12 hours watching the “Man in the Box”. It sounds awfully boring. You want to get a taste of just how boring, try to watch this 10 minute clip (at the end of the post) and see if you can watch it through!
• No immediate reward - Why should I care? £30,000 is a significant amount but the effort is too much. It’s not like buying a lotto ticket or filling a coupon for a lucky draw. This is 30 days of hard work both for poor Tim and for the viewer. Besides we live in an era of instant gratification. Social media demands that we offer some kind of short-term reward if nothing else. Even if I chose to participate for the social goodness I need to see the consequence of my action in some meaningful way. The act of kindness was too far and disconnected from the idea to influence my behavior. This campaign offered me nothing, both personally or socially.
• No engagement - Come on, who does a social media campaign and makes it a monologue. Not that it would have helped much in this case but at least the viewers could have had the opportunity to talk 1-on-1 to Tim for some parts of the day. It could have been a Chatroulette with Tim, only this time he could have been the constant and could choose to block out anyone if they got offensive while others would listen if not participate. Anything, something. A two-way conversation would have been like a lifeline.

Now for for the most dreadful 10-minutes of TV viewing…if you really must!

Planned Spontaneity - a term coined by trendwatching.com in their report from December 2003. When I first came across it I truly believed that it was an idea based on a powerful human truth that had the potential to deliver a compelling brand experience. In fact it was only last month I was thinking along those lines for an airline new business pitch. Coincidentally when I saw KLM deliver surprise the way they did I was…pleasantly surprised.

So what is ‘Planned Spontaneity’ anyway? If we look back at our lives I think all of us would recall some happy moment that occurred rather unexpectedly. It was either one that was completely unplanned, a random act of spontaneity or the product of a dear ones labor of love to give us a surprise and carve out an unforgettable memory. In other words – ‘Planned Spontaneity’. Applied to branding and marketing a surprise is a great way to create an emotional and an engaging brand experience.

Why the KLM Surprise inspires me is the “real time” factor. With the kind of technology and tools available today the time between research and execution has sharply narrowed down to real time events. Not so long ago research would take months to execute and analyze. The translation of an insight to ideas would be a long tedious process. After many rounds of presentations the idea would be approved and sent for execution in the form of some mass media. In the real-time era things are happening at lightning speed and on the go! The KLM team was tracking Twitter feeds and Foursquare check-ins in real time to see who was travelling KLM and is around at the airport waiting to board. Using the tweets or a check-in as a starting point the team would quickly scan the users social profile and come up with a surprise gift idea which would then be bought and delivered instantly to the passenger at their likely gate of departure! Amazing stuff. Check out the video below.

This is another great example of how to use social media. I think the key lesson for marketers is to to track social media conversations in real time and create a system to deliver an instantaneous response. We saw this happen with Old Spice and we are seeing it here again! Have you come across other acts of ‘Planned Spontaneity’ using social media from other brands? Feel free to share you thoughts in the comments below.

It’s been a  little over a year since I started this blog. Quite a journey I must say. I learnt quite a few things about myself and quite a bit about blogging. My first personal learning was the realization that I really enjoy writing. I wonder how I ever managed without blogging. The most important personal benefit is the idea that when you share you learn twice over (a twist on the original ‘when you teach you learn twice over’). The very act of putting pen to the paper (or more like key taps to the screen) has been a liberating and refreshing experience. It has forced me, or rather inspired me to read more. From RSS feeds, to tweets, to magazines, books and more! Besides all the positive personal experiences I also learnt some crucial lessons about blogging itself. Lessons which I hope to apply in the year to come. At the same time I believe anyone who has recently embarked on the “Adventures of Blogging” or is considering a start should find these tips useful.

Lesson #1: Frequency of Posts

First and foremost is frequency of posts. To start with I wanted to keep a realistic target for myself – one post every month. Aiming for quality over quantity and trying to manage everything else in life made it seem the sensible thing to do at the time. Moving forward, for a number of reasons, I believe frequency of posting is critical. Not only does the quality improve as one writes more, it creates more content which in effect drives more traffic. Now how frequent is frequent is debatable. It’s definitely not once a month. From some professional bloggers I have come to learn that an ideal target should be four small posts and one big post every week. Quite a challenge but something I hope to embrace at some level in the coming year.

Lesson #2: Naming a Post

After analyzing my source of traffic over the years I realized Google has been a key driver.  I thought it would be Twitter or Facebook that would play a more crucial role but no doubt it’s Google. Now this is another profound lesson for me. Why? My naming strategy for my posts has always been to make them interesting and out-of-the-box. I believe they should catch attention in a Twitter Feed or a Facebook News Feed. If I am talking about Creativity and Viral marketing the title of the post would be something like “Remember Passing the Pillow”. Now this strategy would work out fine to get your friends or followers attention in a news feed but from an SEO point of view when content is being actively searched for this kind of naming will bear no result. Unless someone is looking for information on the party game “Passing the Pillow” they will not come to my page and when they do you can imagine how much time they would be spending there. Therefore my goal is to easily reach readers who would find the content most relevant.

Lesson #3: Focusing on specific content for a Post

I guess this lesson is related to both the naming strategy and the frequency of posting. When you write once a month you really want to make your post count. You want to be profound, which is great I guess but does not quite work for a number of reasons. You end up writing about a lot of things, lose focus and end up with broad titles that get you nowhere in web search. Imagine writing a post on Advertising and one on a specific ad in the Super Bowl. Which one is going to get you more traffic. Ofcourse this does not mean that one compromises on quality and focuses on things that simply drive traffic. But with a series of focused and relevant posts on advertising the reader will not only get what they are looking for but also get a glimpse of the larger picture if they so desire.

So going forward in 2011 I hope to write more frequently, focus on specific topics and use sharper titles that get the right people to my blog! Thank you Google for making it so easy to be found! Cheers.