Author: Angelo Fernando

White House 3.0 groundwork in place

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Looks like the Obama team is using Change.gov to take the government into a 3.0 world. That’s right, they may as well skip past 2.0 and push into new territory. When was the last time you heard the government say that during this transition process, we the people could “participate in redefining our government?”

Take a look at their Newsroom and Blog links. Already you see signs that the old news page is merging with the blog, because you get a Newsroom: Blog category when you click on the Blog link.

And they’re quite up to speed on the Creative Commons 3.0 license, talking of a 21st Century government, where content will need attribution, but will be open to ‘remix.’

Would this make the WhiteHouse.gov interface (whose ‘interactive’ page inteprets interactivity as a Q & A exchange) obsolete? I can see it going through a huge overhaul?

They want their Bombay back!

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

People in Mumbai (or ‘Mumbaikars’) have begun to more than rally round after the terror attacks. They are angry and determined to send the terrorists –even the political and religious leaders — a strong message. It reminds me of the Londoners’ “We are not afraid” campaign. Networks are being forged, calling for:

UNITY: One group, organizing under the banner “We will not be divided” is asking people to sign a petition, and effectively get the leaders to take action. Today there are 26,676 members. Their message:

“We’re launching a message to extremists on all sides, and our fellow citizens, one that will be published in newspapers across India and Pakistan and delivered to our political leaders within one week. The message is that these tactics have failed and we are more united than ever.”

ACTION: A Facebook group, “One Million Strong for Bombai,” is pointing out who is to blame, and calling for change. They blame the politicians, the intelligence forces, and … themselves.

“By simply joining and saying ENOUGH, we’re taking a step, awakening us from our stupor of indifference.“

CHANGE FROM WITHIN: And most poignantly, from someone I know comes a long piece, saying she wants her Bombay back. She taunts those who have remained silent until now, knowing the change will involve a bottom-up movement.

“I am extremely angry now because my city has bled enough. I want to do something… anything .. to save my city, my home. I wonder why no prominent personality…actor, politician, sportsman, celebrity, poet, theatre artist, doctor… has come forward to fight for their city.”


Quotes for the week ending 29 November, 2008

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“The impending total collapse of the dollar will render the true value of the average savings account or investment portfolio roughly equal to a bucket of warm piss.”

Thomas J. Wurtz, CFO of Wachovia, quoted in a press release about a new, daring billboard ad campaign

“If wearing your baby hurts your back or neck, you need positioning help, not Motrin”

Josh Bernoff, on the huge headache –um, backlash–Johnson & Johnson got on account of the ad about ‘wearing your baby’ in a sling.”

“Let’s face it: your beautifully lit, ideally scouted, model-perfect spot is likely going to be consumed in a 320×240 window. In that environment, Martin Scorsese would have a difficult time distinguishing between something shot on a Panavision Genesis versus a $150 Flip.”

Lewis Rothkopf, on the need to leverage broadband to narrowcast and target messaging in the way broadcasting has never done.

“Cheer up, it could be worse: it could be flu we’re facing and not merely a once in a 100 year meltdown in the financial system.”

Comment about a six-part drama, Survivors, on BBC1 where the story involves 90% of the population being wiped out in a flu pandemic.

“You get 14-year-old boys yelling out `I love you!’ because they learn these English expressions and try to use them.”

Kathleen Hampton, a teacher, using Skype to teach English to students in Korea in a reverse-outsourcing business from a town in Wyoming with a population of just 350.

“It’s not that we now have a president who’s black. It’s that for the first time we have a president who’s actually green.”

Oakland, Ca-based green-collar evangelist, Van Jones at GreenBuild conference this week.

“It’s a terrorist strike. Not entertainment. So tweeters, please be responsible with your tweets.”

A Twitter messge from Mumbai from primaveron@mumbai as the awful terrorist attack on the city broke out. Bloggers and the media took to new media to report the standoff and rescue operation

The Google t(r)ail you leave behind

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

It’s not just the attack ads that affect your reputation. It’s also the sum of the comments and hyperlinks Google’s elephant memory leaves there for posterity.

Motrin Moms – the backlash

ABC network’s slant –why 12,300 comments matter

Rush Limbaugh‘s attack on Michael J. Fox – bad Google junce from 2006

These are brand-names, but you and I could also take steps –pre-emptive ones– to avoid the whiplash of the long tail.

YouTube mashups as attack weapon

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Johnson & Johnson learned the painful way how a social media could be used against you. See previous post and the YouTube video by angry Motrin mom.

This is not exactly a new approach. It was only last November that someone called out Unilever on it’s Axe positioning,  mashing up the brilliant Dove commercial about ‘real beauty’ and the same company’s sex-ridden ads for Axe —below.

These videos tell a different kind of story. The Motrin video is vary basic, the anti-Axe quite slick. Yet they achieve a few important things:

  • They assemble and summarize supporting evidence against the offending brand
  • They make the problem seem big enough to recruit new supporters of the cause
  • They provoke the marketer to react

To think, not too long ago, the only tool at one’s disposal when offended, was a letter to the editor of your local paper!

Motrin’s ad brouhaha: is social media nasty medicine?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Motrin’s baby-as-fashion accessory ad that created a lot of comment among moms in the blogosphere, also created a teaching moment about how social media can be used to monitor, respond and even prevent such a brouhaha.

Thousand of tweets, articles, and angry blog posts later, we need to step back and ask ourselves: how could a marketer learn form this.  AdAge has great analysis of this story with respect to the social media backlash.

First some background: About six months ago, Dunkin Donuts responded to a similar attack (by Michelle Malkin) about an ad that purportedly used a ‘terrorist’ icon, a kaffiyeh. The attack was without any substance, by the marketer took the ad down, fearing the negative chatter in the blogosphere would damage its brand.

Motrin’s parent company, Johnson & Johnson, no stranger to controversy, issued a statement apologizing missing the mark.  I don’t think it needed to have gone there, and could have done better damage control by engaging those they had offended. But hindsight is 20-20 in a crisis, and maybe they did not know how to engage the groups via social media.

Which brings us to pre-emptive public relations, and the ability to use new media to listen first. Without that, social media seems like a btter pill to swallow, because it all seems like a noisy echo-chamber waiting to take you out.


Digital books won’t make my bookshelf lighter

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I have to be careful when saying that a digital product won’t undermine the analog experience. I hung on to my Canon Rebel 2000 for years until I realized the digital SLR was ‘not bad’ and in fact, good enough to make me switch. No need to belabor the vinyl music meets MP3 story.

So the news that Random House plans to digitize thousands of books to serve the nascent eBook demand, has me with mixed thoughts. On the one hand, I couldn’t see myself take a Kindle to bed, though I wouldn’t mind owning one. I can’t imagine how the book experience –that’s far beyond the reading experience–will ever be replicated or made obsolete by the tools we love in other platforms: scrolling, annotating, searching, linking etc.

In the end, the best way to think of the analog and digital bookshelf is not through the either/or lens. I may have a highly productive experience with a digi-book on a long plane flight, especially if it helps me load up the reader with other material and lighten my load. But I will always want that dead-tree experience for other times, even for that age old practice of standing in line for a book signing. Not that there won’t be a digital workaround for that soon!

Quotes for the week ending 22 Nov, 2008

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“There is no ‘bailout clause’ in your credit card contract. Yours truly, Consumer Reports.”

An ad appearing for Consumer Reports

“The greatest influencer is family and friends. The internet is second. Motor shows are third.”

Nigel Harris, the VP of Ford Motor Co. in China, on the automaker’s marketing strategy in the number 2 car market in the world.

“It’s almost like seeing the guy show up at the soup kitchen in a high hat and tuxedo.”

House Representative Gary Ackerman at the hearing of the House Financial Services Committee, commenting on the news that the Ford, Chrysler and GM top executives came to Washington in private jets, just to ask for a bailout.

“Lively no more.”

Message at virtual world site, Lively, (a Google attempt at Second Life) announcing that it was pulling the plug on the experiment.

“Have you ever wanted to mark up Google search results? … Starting today you can”

Google announcement of a more dynamic search application where users could customize and even delete the results to fit their needs.

“Frankly, Obama could appoint his dear mother-in-law as secretary of state, and if he let the world know she was his envoy, she would be more effective than any ex-ambassador who had no relationship with the president.”

Thomas Friedman on the ‘star quality’ appointment of Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

“We are attempting a 180 degree shift in perspective: seeking an algorithm first, problems second. We are investigating core micro- and macro-circuits of the brain.”

Professor Dhamendra Mohda, a IBM scientist working on a $4.9 million grant from DARPA to replicate neural networks in computers that may be eventially applied to data analysis, decision making or even image recognition.

“Virgin launches Wi-Fi in the sky”

News that Virgin Atlantic will begin the first Wi-Fi service on ovember 24th called GoGo, with a live 30-minute inflight recording to YouTube by 30 Rock‘s Keith Powell.

“You can experience public diplomacy in real-time as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Colleen Graffy, travels to Bucharest and twitters along the way.”

News at DipNote on another social media initiative adopted at the highest levels of public diplomacy in the US.

Google’s SearchWiki shows where we are headed

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

If you’ve not heard of SearchWiki, prepare to be amazed. It’s going to change the way you think of Google. Tired of getting some really irrelevant results? Delete the ones you don’t like, add new URLs and markup the ones that you want to come back to later.

Actually it does more than even social bookmarking –a customized Delicious account, for instance — but considering how where Google is going with its new browser (Chrome),  and wiki (Knol), this wikified browser experience could be the way Google learns more about users’ needs.

I can see where this might be going. A search engine meets wiki meets social bookmarking would infect us with the collaboration virus surging through our veins. Soon, we may be able to share our customized search results with a group (a Facebook widget might make sense too) we are collaborating with.

Take a test drive my HoiPolloi Google Search Page at this customized site.

You could switch between HoiPolloiSearch and regular Google search. Even the paid search results change when you toggle between both. The pages could be free of ads for non-profits, government or educationional organizations!