marginally subversive

gmail priority inbox - and yet another way to deal with tonnes of emails...

i just activated my GMail Priority Inbox feature - it seems like a pretty neat idea.

I know, I know - there are privacy repercussions and all that.  And Google is not entirely the same old company that wanted to  "not be evil". 

I do acknowledge all that.

(I am in marketing and in business after all...)

What really got me interested and made me smile was how they communicated - so simply (perhaps, not elegantly) - what a GMail Priority Inbox is.

See for yourself the video they prepared below:

 

As far as I am concerned, this will  be a great help since I get pretty much important emails on my GMail. 

Privacy?  Well, I don't keep that much secrets.

And if there were any, I am making sure that Google don't get them.

(Or at least, I try...)

 

the cluetrain manifesto - a decade on...

[ These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking. Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked. ]

The Cluetrain Manifesto was one of the first things that I read when I was trying to grasp the new realities that the internet and the web were ushering into the world of advertising and marketing communications.

Back then, we looked at the web as "merely another channel - like TV, presses, magazines, and direct mailers - only that it accelerates the purchase cycle being much closer to the purchase occasion".

But we now know of course (I hope that all of us now know that!) that the internet and the web turned out to be more than that.

From my viewpoint, the web has dramatically changed not just the marketing and information landscape: it has changed the way we look at the world, the way we participate in it, the way we feel towards concepts such as privacy, hierarchies, and 'social order'.

And the Cluetrain Manifesto captured the new realities in marketing and in conducting business way before we knew where we were headed. 

Cluetrain

View more presentations from Toscana Enterprises Corporation.

So where are we now?

Here is a video from YouTube on where we are at.

 

One of the most beautiful things that was written in the Cluetrain Manifesto is this last paragraph in the introduction:

[ Corporate firewalls have kept smart employees in and smart markets out. It's going to cause real pain to tear those walls down. But the result will be a new kind of conversation. And it will be the most exciting conversation business has ever engaged in. ]

From the Cluetrain Website

Word of Mouth, Social Media, and Marketing Planning

We are inundated by the supposed strengths of social networks and the emergence of web2.0 technologies that facilitate participatory and 2way conversations.  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogservices, and the like have all emerged as leaders in the area of social media.  Windows Live is not too far off – and Google’s services (e.g., Youtube) in themselves have social-media characteristics.

But there is one thing that we are missing in all these discussions:  Social networks have always been around.  It is just that digital technology has emphasized its importance and has forced marketers and planners such as ourselves to acknowledge its significance.

We’ve also tried to measure “Word of Mouth” as if it were something similar to TV, radio, press, digital, and advertising in general.  But there is one key difference:  WOM is the voice of the consumer.  It is a response that is elicited from their holistic experiences of the brand – from a brand’s advertising messages, marketing communications, and up to its delivery of its supposed promise.

True, it is in itself a medium: If I tell you that Coke is the best soft-drink in the world and that I cannot live without a Coke (aside: I can J), I have turned myself into a medium.

But Coke can’t ‘control’ me – as it can control its advertising on TV, presses, and even digital media.  The decision to speak of Coke – positively or negatively – resides with me, the consumer.

My 2cents’: Social media facilitates word-of-mouth.  And so do other media that in aggregate, create a differentiated brand experience.  You can – perhaps – plan, control, manage, measure and deploy social media plans.  But WOM is something else. 

As one of my colleagues once mentioned: “WOM is a result…”

I would add that it is an interesting, important, and critical medium/channel – but we still have a lot to learn about it.  But the most critical thing to keep in mind is: It is the consumers’ voice, not ours.  And hence, we do not own it.

"el mas famoso" - or simply writing...

(The entry otherwise known as "Why I blog")

Blogging has been an interesting journey for me.  It somehow clears my thinking - and sometimes, whilst writing, I catch some illogicalities in my thinking.  (Although most of the time, I catch these illogicalities when I re-read and review my blog.)

At first, I thought blogging would be a way to become famous - to be "el mas famoso!" is not an entirely bad objective specially in a crowded marketplace such as my field.  But I realized that I was not really writing for anyone else but me.

It's for me to express my thoughts - to get them out of my system - and perhaps, instigate a conversation with someone who may or may not disagree.  A self-serving purpose, still - which I believe is neither good nor bad.  It is still a personal call - a personal goal - a personal blog.

And no, I probabyl won't hit my "el mas famoso" goal, but it is not so important as the power to express myself in ways that only I can do.

Seth Godin wrote about it today on his blog:

Who cares that you're not writing a mass market newspaper? The point is not to show up on a list, the point is to start a conversation that spreads, to share ideas and to chronicle your thinking. That's the work of an author, and I think rather than kissing author blogs goodbye, someone should just start a new list.

(Emphases mine)

Ubiquity Mashups for Firefox

Interesting use of mashup technologies...  Hope it gets into beta soon!

Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

Dumbing it down is making it boring...

I just wrote about boredom in a previous entry.  And right after I hit "publish" on my Windows Live Writer, my RSS reader told me that Seth Godin just wrote something about "dumbing it down".

He writes about pandering to the masses and dumbing things down - and argues that hey, give me smart customers anytime because they are far more profitable, far more energetic, far more engaged.

Why?

The thing is, when you dumb stuff down, you know what you get?

Dumb customers.

And (I'm generalizing here) dumb customers don't spend as much, don't talk as much, don't blog as much, don't vote as much and don't evangelize as much. In other words, they're the worst ones to end up with.

I honestly don't think there dumb customers (and I believe that Seth Godin is being sarcastic...)  Ogilvy said that "the consumer is not a moron; she is your wife".

I have sat down in so many client-agency meetings where clients go "That's too sophisticated for our customers; they wouldn't understand that" or "It's nice and witty - but won't it be too witty to our consumers" or "Just tell them the specifications of our products - that we have GB of storage that could store X thousands of songs and videos" or "just plaster the brand logo there - and we'd be fine".

In other words, "dumb it down because consumers don't understand it".

This runs counter to my belief that we are overly underestimating our customers and our target consumers.  If they were "dumb", then we wouldn't have all these things called FaceBook, Wikipedia, and other tech wonders that were dependent on these "dumb" customers.

Simplify it, yes.  But don't dumb it down.  That's what I would say.  Simplifying it is not necessarily dumbing it down.  Simplifying it is all about making things intuitive, for example, in a computer software. 

(And this is why I like XLSTAT and XLMINER - they're advanced stats software but they're not assuming I am dumb; they just made how I use their software easier and faster.)

Anyway, the same is true with people:  Don't dumb people down.  When you explain things to your subordinates or your peers, don't dumb it down.  Simplify it.  But don't dumb it down.

Here's Seth's Blog on Dumbing down.

Playing Small versus Playing Big

I received an email from a friend.  He's one of those who writes "personal updates" about his previous year, publishes them on a word document, and distributes it to his friends and family members. 

(I know of families that do this - and mostly, they talk about how the kids have grown and how the Christmas play was - complete with kids in costume.  But a single guy doing these updates?  You gotta give it to my friend - he's got lots of drama to write about in his life.)

Anyway, one of the things that struck me was one of his resolutions for 2008:  This year - 2008 - will be the year when I start playing big.  I will aim for the stars and the sun.  I may end up not hitting the sun, but who knows - I might end up on the moon.

Which got me thinking about playing small and playing big.

I never believed that playing small will get my anywhere.  It will probably get me through the day unscathed - and perhaps, give me a night or two of complete peace.  But playing small would make me more bored with my life.  And boredom is bad - always bad.

But lately, I have been asking myself:  Must one always play big?  Must one always want, strive, dream, work hard to become the CEO of the company?  Must one's voice always be heard?

A part of me - the competitive side - would assert that things are not good if things are smooth.  It would assert that if it isn't broken (yet), then break it and rewrite it.  Reinvention, it would argue, is the mother of innovation.

But a part of me also argues against playing big:  Playing small makes one nimbler, faster, more flexible, and more at peace.  Playing big also means being a big target of others who are as competitive as one's self.

So the question - which may sound existential to some (if not everyone) - is For this year, will it be a year of playing small or playing big?

And the answer is...

It depends.

I am sure that I am going to be playing it big in my personal life.  The relationships that I value - the ones that cannot be "monetized" but are very important to my life - will definitely figure strongly this year.  At the same time, there will be relationships that I will dump - relationships that suck the life out of life, relationships that do nothing but destroy other aspects of my life.

In my career, I am also sure that I will play it big.  The competitive spirit in me still remains - but it will be tempered.  This year will the year that I will be playing responsibly.  The game will be played seriously - but there will be aspects of the game that I will give up on because it is not worth winning.

I guess it comes with age - this ability to discern what is and what is not worth playing for.   Not that I have mastered it - but the years have led me to this realization:  That not all games need to be played, not all games need to be won, and not all games need to be special.

Some games are worth playing big for - and some games are not.

My executive coaches will probably kill me for saying this - but nobody's last words were ever "I wish I delivered that presentation or report better". 

There are some things that not even stocks and stock options can buy.

 

Technorati Tags: Personal Journeys,2008,New Year,Views,Personal Views,Playing Big,Playing Small

funny...

This is really funny.

agencies, advertisers and consumers

Picked this one up from YouTube.

 

Interesting take on advertises, agencies, and consumers... Well, things have changed, people! Wake up!

 

Technorati Tags: MSN, Microsoft, Advertising, Ad Agencies, Agency Life

Good Enough and Excellent Websites

I was about to write a rant about Seth Godin's entry on "how to build good-enough websites" when I read his next entry on "how to create a great website".  The rant would have been around the idea of "why bother building something that's not great in the morass of the web?  Why bother doing something - creating something, getting involved in something - that is simply "good-enough" and not "great" and not "remarkable"?"

Coming from Seth Godin, who, in The Dip, wrote about being excellent, remarkable, stellar, and about Zipf's Law, it was quite unnerving (for a fan, at least) to see that he's now writing about "good-enough" things.

But thank God he wrote another one about building great websites.

The beauty of great websites (not that I am an expert in building them - look at this blog!) is that it doesn't have to be full of the latest tech stuff.  It doesn't have to be filled with animation, with flash, with the whole shebang.  Sometimes, simplicity in and of itself commands greatness.  It's not just the design - it's also the overall relevance of the website.

Anyway, my take is simple - If it's not going to be great, it's probably not worth doing.

And Seth Godin's advice on how to build great websites are very relevant - not just in creating websites, but in creating something great whether they are ads, media plans, communications plans, marketing plans, business plans, business vision and mission statements, living...

It's all about being great.  And excellent.  In all things one does.

1. Fire the committee.

2. Change the interaction.

3. Less. Fewer words, fewer pages, less fine print.

4. What works, works. Theory is irrelevant.

5. Patience.

6. Measure.

7. Insight is good, clever is bad. Many websites say, “look at me.” Your goal ought to be to say, “here’s what you were looking for.”

8. If you hire a professional: hire a great one. The best one.

9. One voice, one vision.

10. Don’t settle.

Technorati tags: Seth Godin, Great Websites, Being Excellent, Being Remarkable

del.icio.us tags: Seth Godin, Great Websites, Being Excellent, Being Remarkable