Digital Solid: Marketing Technology ROI

Hey, Milwaukee, it’s pecha kucha! Let’s all go watch a slideshow!

The media have called pecha kucha — that unpronounceable presentation format created by two Tokyo architects — a poetry slam for designers. Except it’s not just for design folks.

Writers, photographers, and just about every other member of the creative class have devised and shown these six-minute wonders. Shown where, you ask? Over 100 cities around the world have conducted public pecha kucha nights. And this summer Milwaukee will be added to the list.

I created my first pecha kucha in October and became immediately hooked. I dare you to attend its official Milwaukee debut and not be bowled over by its power.

You’ll find more details at the official site, but here are the basics:

WHEN

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
8pm; $10 register online or buy at door

WHERE

Hi Hat Garage
1701 N. Arlington Place
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

PRESENTERS

• Corey Canfield | Milwaukee Recycles (Kind Of)
• Erica Conway | How a Woman Runs a Business
• Tom Crawford | Kaszube Ornithological Concern International
• Peter Exley | Growing Up in a Black and White World
• Daniel Goldin | Dead Department Stores
• Nicolas Lampert | Meatscapes: A Travel Log
• Faythe Levine | Craftivism & Community
• Aaron Schleicher | The Making of a True American Record
• Jolynn Woehrer | Unwrapping Chocolate for its (Dis) Contents:
  A Feminist Analysis of its Fetishisms and its Fair Trade

CREDITS

Hosted by 800ceoread at The Hi Hat Garage
Promoted by 91.7 WMSE and Schwartz Bookshops
Founded by Klein Dytham architecture

Thank you Jon Mueller of 800CEOread for helping to bring this form to Milwaukee!

Add comment May 15th, 2008

How little do web users read? Even less than you think

Before you struggle too hard and long over that golden prose you’ve drafted for your web site, consider this statistic, as cited on Jakob Nielsen’s USEIT.com site last week:

On average, users [in the study discussed] will have time to read 28% of the words if they devote all of their time to reading. More realistically, users will read about 20% of the text on the average page.

The takeaway: Write as though your reader has one foot out the door and the other on a banana peel. Get to the point and then move on!

Add comment May 14th, 2008

Today Google does a cannonball into the social networking pool

Three weeks ago, on a lark, I registered the domain name RumSocko.com. But until just now, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with it.

Then, just moments ago, I learned that Google has entered the social network arena in a way that only a market behemoth can. Friend Connect will allow any site to have social network functionality. This tells me two things:

1. Google sees an opportunity in social media marketing (SMM)
2. It’s time for me to invite my friends and relatives to submit their favorite rum drinks

Of course, only point #1 is of real relevance to my fellow marketing technologists. There has been plenty of talk lately about how social networks are still groping for a viable revenue model. I suspect Google will lead the way to the banquet.

The only question will then be: Must other social networks resign themselves to the crumbs that Google leaves behind?

2 comments May 12th, 2008

Why you’ll never find truly brilliant open source web design

Malcolm Gladwell recently wrote about the nature of invention, and a society’s response to it. We revere scientists as heroes, for inventing solutions to our toughest problems. Yet Gladwell points out that these geniuses seem to be more vessels than virtuosos.

The inspiration for a particular technology seems to arise “in the air,” to be picked up by the right inventive minds and made real. In many cases, such as the story of the invention of the telephone, there is more than one inventor. In addition to Alexander Graham Bell, there seems to be a parallel invention of the device by a fellow by the name of Elisha Gray. Why is he unknown? As often happens, the awarding of bragging rights turns into a race to the patent office.

Science historians call this phenomenon “multiples.”

The same creative insights seem to strike a number of inventors — often scattered across the globe — at the same time in history. Gladwell reminds us that the uncertainly of whom was the real originator makes our inclination to name a device after its “inventor” a dicey proposition at best:

We think we’re pinning medals on heroes. In fact, we’re pinning tails on donkeys.

This made me think of open source applications. Perhaps it’s fitting that we do not commonly know the single inventor of PHP technology — not because so many have built upon this foundation, but because the foundation itself was “in the air,” ready to be interpreted into code. I use PHP as an example, but any open source innovation will do to make my point.

Few would argue with the genius behind PHP. So why don’t we see multiples of web design? Aren’t good designs of sites “in the air” as well?

Singulars versus Multiples

Gladwell provides a hint to an answer when he states, “[a historian's observation] about scientific geniuses is clearly not true of artistic geniuses.” He goes on as follows:

A work of artistic genius is singular … Shakespeare owned Hamlet because he created him, as none other before or since could. Alexander Graham Bell owned the telephone only because his patent application landed on the examiner’s desk a few hours before Gray’s.

I find this distinction fascinating, because both types of genius are put into play in the creation of a great interactive experience. I love that one part of the process — the technology — uses the work of many to channel something that is clearly superior to others it replaces, yet is impossible to attribute to a single creator. Yet the part of the process that creates the most intimate parts of that application — the design — are invariably one person’s handiwork.

That is the true genius of web design, and it explains why a digital world will never make a web designer less “singular” than, say, a great playwright or composer.

Add comment May 12th, 2008

StumbleUpon gets to the crux of my problem

Sometimes I regret finding so many things interesting.

You see, I grew up in a part of the country that was extremely remote and sparsely populated, with little cultural diversity, in an era before cable, VCRs, and of course the internet. The majority of my teachers, bless them, were clearly there for the hunting and the summers off. In other words, intellectual stimulation was not a feature of my childhood.

Years later, after some lucky breaks and the support and guidance of some extraordinary people, I find myself doing work that is rewarding and stimulating. Especially stimulating. The internet has given me the freedom to explore everything that intrigues me.

All of this became apparent as I updated my StumbleUpon profile.

It’s as though a genie had poofed out of a lamp and given me the ability to visit the best web sites available on any subject I choose. And unlike the genie from One Thousand and One Nights, I’m given not three wishes but 127. There is the rub!

I started with major interests, and realized that I’d checked more categories than I’d left blank. As I dug deeper into each, I was stopped at 127 interests, with the depths of many categories left unplumbed. The word cloud above shows the major selections only.

My first bosses were a pair of brilliant advertising entrepreneurs. One had a degree in history, the other, journalism. Together they showed me the power person grounded in the Humanities could have in the business world.

They too were cultural omnivores.

I thought of them this evening as I ticked off the many areas of study I wished I had an entire lifetime to explore.

Tonight I might skip sleep. Again. I may just stay up and drink deeply from the well of StumbleUpon, a magical servant who feeds that little boy whose thirst for knowledge insists on being quenched.

Add comment May 10th, 2008

Webby winners include new personal finance site

Yesterday I described how Mint.com effectively used persuasion architecture modes of purchasing to acquire new users. Later that day the site acquired its first Webby Award. Here’s a rundown from Mashable of other notable winners, including one that should have gotten Best Use of Snail Mail In Its Web Design: PostSecret.com.

Add comment May 6th, 2008

Video shows the use of buying modes in persuasion architecture

Personas are used to help in web design — especially in optimizing its content. The goal is to identify important user types and speak to them in their own language. Personas are traditionally archetypes, such as the following (these are summaries of longer personas, pulled from three randomly-selected persona sets):

• A single, 50-something female executive researching healthcare options for her mother, and intending to share her findings with her siblings
• A young man who works as a car mechanic, considering buying an engagement ring online and afraid of making a mistake
• An elected city official responsible for recommending a source for a fleet of utility vehicles, who is unaccustomed to using the internet

Purchasing styles are implied within those personas, and those varying styles are key to how a site is designed to cultivate interest and close the online sale. It’s knowledge of these varying purchasing styles that helps set the tone and composition of a site — choosing what goes where on a page, and how is it presented.

This begs the question: Since purchasing styles are so important, why can’t you focus on those alone, and place other aspects of a persona on the back burner? The answer is you can.

Roy H. Williams, along with The Eisenburg Brothers, tout a four-quadrant system for categorizing a person’s purchasing style. It is as follows:

1. Fast + Logical = “Competitive”
2. Fast + Emotional = “Spontaneous”
3. Slow + Emotional = “Humanistic”
4. Slow + Logical = “Methodical”

These Modes of Persuasion Architecture are described at length in Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing.

View this video

Books like this one from The Brothers Eisenberg are all well and good. But they can be fairly lifeless. Then, this morning, I saw their dimensional approach brought to life. It was in a video produced by Patrick Sullivan, Jr., showing the home page of Mint.com, a slick personal finance site. See for yourself how various modes of purchasing are successfully addressed on this excellent site.

2 comments May 5th, 2008

Two new uses of Twitter — one smart marketing, one pure fun

After Comcast’s recent embarrassment of a hilarious YouTube video documenting a cable installation worker sleeping on the job, they’ve realized that good social media management equals good reputation management. That’s my take on why they’ve hired a customer service person to monitor Twitter for consumer complaints.

It almost convinces you that Twitter is more than just a toy.

Naaaah.

Check out Twistori, a brilliant Twitter-fueled demonstration of current social zeitgeist. Perhaps this Comcast customer service person should just troll the site’s I Hate feed for mentions of his employer.

Add comment May 2nd, 2008

Why don’t newspapers tout their power to sell across channels?

One thing that separates humans from other creatures is our ability to use the same tool in different ways. The ultimate example is the computer, which has hundreds of uses. But even a doorstop can make a pretty impressive paperweight when push comes to shove. So why is it so tough to sell a print ad to serve a new strategy? I’m thinking of its use as a cross-channel tactic.

Is it that the typical ad rep isn’t attuned to this medium’s use? Or is it that the typical ad buyer wouldn’t warm to the new tactic even if it could help turn a mediocre print campaign into something extraordinary? As usual, it appears the marketers on both sides of the desk are clueless, and the consumers are the only ones arriving at the party on time.

Research done using Google Print Ads activity, and conducted by Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo, found that consumers definitely do not look at newspaper ads in a vacuum. They often use the web to evaluate and purchase. This research focused on a segment of consumer who tends to research products and services seen in newspapers. My guess is this could be a consumer looking for any considered purchase, where the resources risked by a bad decision are significant.

Not surprisingly, two-thirds use the web in their research. What was noteworthy was that of this group, 70 percent say they went on to make a purchase following the research. Although this is self-reported, it shows the pathway that many multi-channel purchasers take. (Which explains why Kevin Hillstrom is smiling broadly in the picture on his blog!)

I see three take-aways:

• Any newspaper advertiser that doesn’t have a strong web presence is wasting money
• Any web site that isn’t fully optimized for organic search should be considered a defective site, since researchers may not use a URL printed in an ad to do the research
• Ad reps should be pushing harder on selling the off-line / on-line tactic, whether through unique URLs printed in ads or more innovative tactics (think mobile research), such as ShopText.

I just came out of a lunch meeting with two ad reps for a national weekly newspaper. No matter which way I probed, it was clear that they weren’t selling — and ad buyers weren’t buying — multi-channel ad strategies.

Here’s a press release on the study on the Newspaper Association of America web site. Let’s hope the ad sellers — and buyers — read the study and take heed. Consumers are waiting to google the next item they see in print.

2 comments April 30th, 2008

Neurotic? Narcissistic? We knew from your email address

A recent study of 100 college students showed that strangers can accurately guess traits like openness, agreeability, neuroticism, conscientiousness and narcissism by looking at a person’s email address. The study was published in The Journal of Research in Personality, as reported today in NewScience (subscription required).

The panels’ guesses agreed most with a personality survey completed when it came to qualities like openness, conscientiousness and narcissism, and diverged most on the trait of extroversion. Addresses that gave away personality often contained full stops, numbers or a name that was obviously not genuine.

It’s interesting how much we can reveal in a few characters and numbers. However, the study did look at the email addresses of teens. Perhaps we get better at hiding our personalities as we mature. Don’t you think? Let me know, at nacissisticjerk@hotmail.com.

Add comment April 26th, 2008