Exploring Marketing Technology

Opinions are all my own

  • Twiducate concept is too good to stay in the classroom

    Yesterday Naomi Harm give a keynote address at the Lake Geneva Schools Technology Academy, an educational event for elementary, middle school and high school teachers. Although I wasn’t at the event, word reached me about a social media-inspired educational platform called Twiducate. Similar to Yammer (“Twitter for intra-business communication”), Twiducate does not use the already overtaxed Twitter platform, but instead uses many of the principles that make Twitter so useful.

    I took a test-drive of Twiducate last night, and two things struck me. The first revelation I had became the title for this post; The developers of Twiducate will be hard-pressed to stop work groups other than classrooms from using the tool. The other revelation is about education reform. Yes, reform won’t happen on its own. But certain facets of it will happen naturally, “seeping in” from the emerging social media zeitgeist. Avoiding new teaching environments like Twiducate will be like holding back a rising tide.

    Here’s a video:

    So: Will the subversion of this tool be harmful?

    I think asking the question is moot. This type of thing will happen regardless. I’m thinking of at least two other examples of where a social network is forced to morph because of the unintended uses those pesky members decide to put it to.

    1. Fotolog.com started as a primarily photo-sharing site, similar to Flickr.com. But its meteoric growth in the last decade — especially in Chile, Argentina and Brazil — was due to users hopping on to connect and generally socialize. Sharing favorite pics became secondary.
    2. If the above sounds like dumb luck — like simply being in the right place with the right product (read: social toolset) — you’re right. And you’re also probably thinking of my second example. Although Mark Zuckerburg might posit that Facebook’s growth was all part of some master plan, we shouldn’t forget that he built it in his dorm, six years ago, as merely a “Harvard-thing” — primarily an easy way for him and others to organize study groups.

    Check out Twitucate. Do you agree that it’s more than education’s new “Moodle-killer?” Does it have “legs” beyond academia, and is that a good thing?

  • Can you guess the winner in this A/B test?

    I’ve been following the site Anne Holland’s* “Which Test Won?” for a while, and was particularly intrigued at this test, for several reasons.

    As you’ll read if you take the test, one achieved a better email open rate and click-through-rate, while the other was more effective at inducing purchase.

    Can you guess which is which, and why?

    I guessed correctly. One would hope, given my background. You can read my rationale in the comments section, which becomes available once you vote. Don’t be disappointed; at least when I took the test, a clear majority guessed incorrectly.

    Full disclosure: Sony Creative Software — and Kevin St. Angel, their director of ecommerce extraordinaire — was a client of mine in a “past life.” My policy of never talking about client work in this blog doesn’t come into play here.

    It’s not that they are no longer a client. That wouldn’t matter. But since Sony has made this test public I feel free to discuss it and encourage further discussion on Anne’s site.

    Good luck taking the one-question test!

    * If Anne Holland’s name sounds familiar, it’s because, among her other accomplishments, she is the founder of Marketing Sherpa.

  • Jim Raffel to talk about business blogging strategy at Milwaukee Likemind

    As co-host of Milwaukee Likemind (search for #MKElikemind on Twitter), I never fail to enjoy the presentations. True, I help to choose the content … but take my word for it. I’m also constantly surprised by the fascinating twists and unexpected tangents these conversational events take.

    Haven’t you waited long enough to check one out? Here’s the information on next Friday’s event, from the MKE Likemind Posterous blog:

    Jim Raffel, CEO of ColorMetrix Technologies and blogger at JimRaffel.com, has some big ideas on how to improve your blog. At least, he has formulated and put into practice many ways to improve his own blog, and he has offered to share with you some of the best. Jim will be speaking at the July 16, 2010 Milwaukee Likemind, starting at 7:00 AM. …

    Even if you do not currently have a blog, or manage a blog for your business, Jim’s message is one you should hear. That includes:

    • If you don’t have a blog now, considering getting one
    • Consider your blog a way to advance your personal brand
    • The blog as an “ongoing job interview”

    “Twitter is great, but it’s microblogging. It gives you a chance to say what you’re thinking. But it doesn’t represent rich  ideas or insights” Jim said. “Your blog is where you can drive people to find out more about you.”

    The event will be held at Bucketworks, 706 5th St., Milwaukee, just north of National Avenue. Here’s a map.

    If you’ve heard Jim Raffel speak, you know what an engaged and exciting speaker he is. His blog is a new one that I’m following, and I’m finding the content valuable and well presented.

    I hope to see you in a week!

  • Dashboard liberation: Excellent Analytics moves Google application to Excel

    Although it’s easy to bash Microsoft, over the years a handful to tricks have made me an avid fan of Excel. Pivot tables and relational look-ups (all hail VLOOKUP!) are two arrows in my web analytics quiver. I’ve just added another. If you work in Google Analytics a lot, you should too.

    Excellent Analytics is a free Excel add-in that truly lives up to its name. It allows you to run queries to Google Analytics’ API right from Excel, and publish its results there.

    Say goodbye to many of the “Save to Excel” hassles that used to come with wishing to share and chart Google Analytics results beyond its powerful-yet-limited dashboard.

    Go to Excellent Analytics now and give it a try. You’ll need Windows Vista or greater, Microsoft Office 7, and Windows .NET Framework 4. Give yourself a couple of hours to install and learn the system. Then start publishing, charting and sharing. You’ll fall in love the way I did!

  • World Cup win was also a triumph for Edward Tufte

    The U.S. just won a pivotal game in the World Cup, and it was a squeaker. I “watched” it while working, using an amazing new data visualization app on the New York Times website. One tab in particular reminded me of the teachings of data visualization guru Edward Tufte. It showed an easy-to-read display of key game statistics, updated every 15 seconds:

    The right column had a pull-down that allows users to see vital statistics about each player. The number of touches in the game, by player, is shown above. Others include fouls, cards, and of course goals (a list of exactly zero players at this point in the game!)

    No, I’m not such a data wonk that I could feel like I’ve experienced the action by watching this view. But the other tabs at least gave me a hint at the action I was missing away from the television screen. Check these out, keeping in mind that you can see the latest action, and review the action that took place earlier, in a type of choppy animation, using the timeline player at the bottom of the app:

    And here’s another:

    Notice, at the very bottom of the graphic, the audio toggle. I chose to keep the app in the background, with the audio turned on. Throughout the game, the app was silent (thank goodness it didn’t pipe the vuvuzela noise through my computer speakers!) That is, the app was silent until that U.S. goal in added time. That’s when I heard a three-second burst of cheers. It was a cue for me to check the app and receive the thrilling news.

    Edward Tufte believes the future vitality of business — and perhaps even of our species — hinges on how well we can communicate complex information quickly and intuitively. The Times has adopted many of his favorite techniques, particularly in the Finance and Sports sections. For example, those little sparklines you can find there were first made popular by Tufte.

    This latest real time tracking of the complex game of world football (a.k.a. soccer) is a demonstration of how far we’ve come with data visualization, and an exciting taste of the future. Gooooaaaaallllll!