Jan/113
How “Social Business Design” Has Changed My Outlook on Social Media
The 4 archetypes that guide Dachis Group's social business design are Ecosystem, Hivemind, Dynamic Signal, and Metafilter.
Powered, the social media agency I worked for, was recently acquired by Dachis Group. Through this new venture of his, Razorfish co-founder, Jeffrey Dachis, is trying to validate a concept that has grown a pair of legs over the last few years: Social Business. It’s a relatively new concept to me, having spent all my time working on the consumer engagement side of social media. In a nutshell, however, it’s the process of internalizing social media ideals and applying many of those same consumer-facing archetypes to internal communications, policies, processes, and corporate culture, ultimately leading to a better company that makes better products.
My views and beliefs about social media have been called contrarian and I’ve frequently been labeled a devil’s advocate. But the truth is, I never saw myself falling into social in the first place. I didn’t touch social media, professionally, until my last internship in college, when I was doing blogger outreach for the launch of Dirt Candy. The reason for my skepticism stems from my belief that most social media programs are inherently digital campaigns cleverly dressed in Facebook fan pages and YouTube profiles. I think it’s naive to believe that the majority of the industry doesn’t lump social into digital, and for good reason. We, as marketers, fail to draw significant lines between the two.
Then again, should we be drawing lines at all?
I’ve written about the pervasiveness of social, and how the lines between media are becoming blurred. What I don’t hope for, however, is everything to be powered by Facebook Connect. If the future of social is to be determined by sites like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, then my skepticism about its future is well-founded, and it will fail to escape digital’s sphere of influence to become a ubiquitous force that knows no departmental bounds.
But I have hope; and it comes from social business design.
My antithetical attitudes towards social are born out of a desperate belief that it’s so much more powerful than what we’re currently doing with it. We talk about how disruptive a force social media is, and how it’s changing the landscape forever, but what are we really doing to drive that grandiose change? Surely it isn’t Twitter races.
I’ve always been a firm believer in the notion that people don’t develop affinities for brands just because they have a fan page, or tweet 3-5 times a day. People ultimately grow closer to brands because of the benefits they render in our lives. I used to be a hardcore Microsoft and Windows user. That is, until the iPhone came out, which led me to a MacBook, which led me to an iMac, and soon enough an iPad (com’on 2nd generation). I got caught in Apple’s famous halo effect; but I’m not ashamed.
I was introduced to many of Apple's other great products following my original iPhone purchase.
That transition didn’t happen because Apple had a YouTube contest or an elaborate fan acquisition strategy. It’s because they create wonderful products. It’s as simple as that. You’ll be hard pressed to find a direct connection between a company’s social media marketing and long-lasting effects on their bottom line. What you will find is a direct connection between the creation of better, more innovative, products and increased sales and demand.
It’s believed that social business design has the power to transform a company into an environment where free-thinking and innovation can thrive, theoretically leading to better ideas and better products. Corporate process change may not sound as sexy, but I believe that what we’re currently doing with social media, as an industry, is only skin deep. We have merely scratched the surface of what I think is possible through the democratization of these tools; at least I hope so. Because if this is it, then I might as well go back to my digital roots.
I don’t think this is it, however. I believe there’s a long road ahead for social; and thankfully it doesn’t lead to marketing more effectively on Facebook. We should aspire to more. We should challenge ourselves to find greater purpose for an idea that can potentially change the way business is conducted forever. We simply have to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and believe that we’re on the cusp of something much larger and much more powerful than what we initially set out to achieve.
Dec/090
Is The Apple Tablet The Future of Print Media? Multimedia? Everything?
As a gadget junkie, my primary interest has always been emerging technologies. Somehow, I’ve always had the room on my credit cards to support my habit, and the mentors to help foster it.
The forthcoming Apple Tablet has always been something of much interest to me. I’ve been following its “development” for the better part of this year, eagerly anticipating any news of its release. As we draw closer to its expected January unveiling, I’m beginning to wonder what exactly we can come to expect out of Cupertino?
I spend too much money on Apple products these days. And after buying an iPhone 3GS and 27-inch iMac this year alone, it’s getting hard to justify the estimated cost (about $800) of an Apple Tablet next Spring. I know I’m lying to myself about it, and will likely own one at release, but I like to pretend I can exercise free will.
But the question for the ages is if it’s just going to be an oversized iPod Touch?
I’m scared of getting caught up in the early adopter craze and snatching one up without justification. What void is the Tablet going to fill that my iPhone, MacBook, and iMac don’t already?
And then I think of something I read in an article: There’s a good chance I simply can’t see the future as clearly as Steve Jobs can. The man is a visionary, no matter what side of the fence you sit on. He’s a thought leader among thought leaders. And before the iPhone, I had no idea the things it can do were even possible. He reshaped the wireless telecom industry with one device. And being that after many years of stop-start attempts, he’s “extremely happy with the new tablet,” I would imagine that wherever it stands, it’s got to be awesome.
As we get closer, the picture is becoming clearer. It’s hard to tell exactly what kinds of multitouch gestures and interactive experiences we can expect to see come from the Tablet. But a recent Popular Science demo out of BERG and Bonnier R&D, dubbed Mag+, explores the possibilities of an interactive magazine, and gets me hot and bothered for the future.
Two other notable demos were created for Wired magazine, and Sports Illustrated. The Sports Illustrated demo was actually done by my old employer, The Wonderfactory. But something I read on Gizmodo brought up a good point:
“I’m sorry, Time Inc. and Condé Nast and Murdochs of the world, but magazines are not dying because they are printed on paper. They are going under because many other factors. Here are some of them: Reduced attention spans, reader’s demand for instant satisfaction, and a general change in visual culture and codes that have rendered the page concept obsolete in favor of more anarchic, time-organized information structures, as well as non-linear ones.”
Is the future of print media on the Tablet simply glorified PDFs with Facebook Connect integration? The Mag+ demo is easily the most impressive, and perhaps the most likely of the three design schemes to succeed. It does, what I believe, the most efficient job of marrying an old stodgy medium with the web-influenced nature of today’s consumer.
I think the key to the Tablet’s success isn’t in what it can do, it’s in what it can deliver. Apple holds a house full of multitouch patents. And apparently we’ll be “very surprised how you interact with the new tablet,” according to a New York Times blog post. So, I don’t doubt that it’ll be fun to use. The question is what it will be used for. And I think that’s where distribution becomes the X-factor in this whole thing.
If the Tablet can deliver Mag+ level interactivity to all of our favorite magazines, newspapers, textbooks, comic books, and shopping catalogs (this IKEA demo is a must-see), and establish a streamlined distribution channel (probably through iTunes), then the future of print media is locked. With the proper content publishers on board, a new way of interacting with content that reinvents the way we thought about print, and an easy and especially cheap way of getting that content into your hands, you’re looking at a fundamental shift in the print publishing business.
Add to all of this, the developing rumors of an iTunes subscription service for television content, and access to the iTunes App Store, and you have a perfect storm for the future of multimedia on-the-go. Anyone can create an awesome device chock full of features (albeit, it may not look as attractive). But the content distribution infrastructure that Apple has worked meticulously on for nearly a decade has put them in a position that no other device maker can compete with; not even Microsoft.
I don’t believe this was all a serendipitous mistake. I believe Steve Jobs and the folks at Apple have been planning this coup d’état of our multimedia content for a long time coming; slowly and very cautiously putting the right pieces in place to checkmate its competitors into submission.
Apple has become the Walmart of digital content, with the Tablet potentially acting as the first missing link between the physical world, and the digital content we love. And now that Jobs is satisfied, the only thing that could could kill this idea is exorbitantly expensive cellular service by a greedy mobile carrier, severely limiting its consumer adoption appeal.
Nonetheless, naysayers who wish to cling to their tired old ways, just may find themselves digging an early grave…if they haven’t already.
Hurrah, Hurrah! Print is dead.