There’s something endearing about revolutions. The fall of the Berlin Wall and its aftermath, the Color Revolutions and the Arab Spring all captured our imaginations and changed history.
Years later, what we remember is not so much the details, but the memes. Think of any great moment, etched in the fabric of posterity and it’s probably something not central to the story, but rather an idea or image that took hold, for whatever reason.
In 2004, I was in Kiev, Ukraine during the Orange Revolution. A lot of what I remember is probably very similar to what outsiders saw – vast seas of people waving orange, Yulia Timoshenko and her braids in better times and so on. Yet there were some other, lesser known, memes that can teach us a lot about how ideas and innovations spread.
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Love him or hate him, Malcolm Gladwell has unquestionably become a cultural force. His books are instant bestsellers. His columns in the New Yorker have been known to go viral and his Ted Talks are riveting.
Yet his detractors say he plays fast and loose, glossing over facts, oversimplifying complex issues and sometimes just getting it wildly, wildly wrong. The thing is, they’re right. For anyone who wants to take shots at Gladwell, he certainly gives them plenty of ammunition.
However, it’s only fair to point out that Gladwell is not a researcher, but a journalist and a popularizer. He takes ideas from the cutting edge and brings them into the popular zeitgeist. For that, he should be commended. However, those who read him should do so with caution, there’s usually more to the story than he lets on. Here’s a rundown.
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Ever since social media came on the scene, a lot of people have been talking about brands initiating meaningful conversations with consumers.
Detractors caution that consumers have other people they like to talk to, like friends, family and attractive members of the opposite sex. In their view brands that waste time and money trying “create conversations” risk annoying consumers instead of selling to them. They have a point.
Just because you need to buy socks or bathroom cleaner, doesn’t mean you want to build an entire relationship around your purchase. However, I also think that the skeptics are missing the larger issue. Every good business needs to pay close attention to market signals and digital technology is enabling us to both listen and respond exciting new ways.
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What’s the big deal about the information economy anyway? Surely, information has played a role in commerce since ancient times. What’s changed?
One reason for the confusion is that we’re not used to making the distinction between information and knowledge. Go to Istanbul’s ancient Grand Bazaar and you’ll instantly grasp that the traders know a lot, but not much that they can easily share even if they want to. That, it turns out, makes all the difference.
The emergence of information as a storable, fungible entity is transforming our economy and our society in ways that we scarcely realize. It’s making us richer, smarter and even healthier. What’s more, its impact is accelerating, so we’ll see a lot more change in the coming decades than we have in the past. In fact, we’re just getting started.
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In the wake of the 2008 financial crash people were saying that magazines were doomed. The story was that social media would allow amateurs to compete with professional journalists and that “big media” would die a death of a thousand cuts.
I argued at the time that the downturn looked very much like previous cycles and that there was no reason to believe that this time was any different. As the economy improved, the magazine business would too. (It did). So I’m certainly more optimistic about magazines than most.
However, both circulations and ad revenues are falling again and this time it is indeed different. The decline has nothing to do with cycles and everything to do with tablets, which are becoming central to the new media value chain. Although the challenges are not insurmountable, every publisher must adapt to survive. Here’s what’s important.
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So anyway, I was drinking scotch one night a few years ago and, in between various fantasies of world domination, I thought, “Hey, why don’t I start a blog?”
I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I had started posting in LinkedIn groups and began to receive fan mail (I was more than surprised, I thought they were nuts!). So, after a few more drinks, I had bought a domain name, downloaded WordPress and next thing I knew, I was a blogger.
Thankfully, it’s turned out pretty well. I have attracted a large following, met a lot of great (and smart!) people, learned a ton and been featured on major media outlets. Lately, I’ve started to get a lot of questions about how I go about it and still others about why I do it at all. So I thought, “Hey! There’s a good idea for a post!” Here we go…
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There’s more to writing than typing. There’s more to photography than taking pictures and there’s more to publishing than simply creating content.
Nevertheless, marketers and ad agencies act as if all you need is a clever idea, some consumer research and a snappy PowerPoint presentation. Make no mistake; publishing is a skill that talented professionals devote their entire careers to and shouldn’t be taken lightly.
It is not a buzzword, but a craft to be practiced and honed. It’s unrealistic, not to mention foolish, to treat it any other way. Moreover, in the new paradigm of paid, owned and earned media, marketers are finding that publishing is not an option, but an imperative and are devoting significant resources to it. Here’s some guidance on how to do it right.
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I have a confession to make: I’m not really very techie. I still read books on paper and don’t see myself getting a Kindle. I only recently picked up an iPad and I have absolutely no idea what to do with Instagram or Pinterest.
That may be surprising, especially coming from a “Digital Tonto,” but to be honest, a lot of technology, just like a lot of TV shows, radio stations and books, is a waste of time for me.
The reason that I don’t feel the need to immediately dive into every new gadget is precisely because I’m getting so much out of the technology I do use. That’s why I am bewildered that so many so-called “intellectuals” denigrate technology under the guise of a mistaken sense of cultural superiority. It’s not technology they undermine, but the human spirit.
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Marketing used to be about two things: Creating a big idea and executing it as cheaply and efficiently as possible without sacrificing quality. We looked for large audiences and negotiated tough deals.
That’s evolved somewhat in recent years, as both agencies and clients recognized that too much emphasis was being put on outputs and not enough on outcomes. Just because you reach a lot of people doesn’t mean that you’ve driven the business forward.
The ROI movement sought to more closely align tactics with business goals. It has been highly successful. So successful, in fact, that most of the important problems have largely been solved. What remains involves computational resources and integration. Therefore, we are now entering a post-ROI world of innovation, open brands and co-creation.
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We all have ideas all the time. Some are good, but rather ordinary, (like spontaneously buying flowers for your wife on the way home), some are bad (like buying her a knife set for her birthday) and others, like Google’s PageRank are unquestionably great.
Just a few stand out above all the rest. They change the course of history and affect the lives of millions who aren’t even aware of them. Amazingly, some are largely the work of a single person.
Those ideas are truly great and seven really stand out. To make my selection, I applied three criteria: Longevity (i.e. they survive a long time without being amended or surpassed in any significant way), impact (i.e. they greatly affected the lives and work of others) and authorship (i.e. they can be traced to one person). Here’s my list, see what you think.
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