Author: Angelo Fernando

A formula for going viral? Picking Everett’s and Brown’s brain

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I had a great conversation with Brown Russell, former Chairman of Gum Tech (GUMM:NASDAQ), last evening on our radio show.

Brown was behind (and by this I mean he led) the launch of Zicam –the cold remedy, medicine. I didn’t know this but Zicam was one of the fastest growing new cold treatments in recent history.

The reason I thought he would be a great guest was because of a book I noticed on his desk one day. It was one of those thick books on communication that communicators who have just graduated may have not even heard about: The Diffusion of Innovations by Everett Rogers, first published in 1962. (By the way Rogers published 30 books in 15 languages.)

To put this in perspective this was before the Internet was ‘discovered.’ And some of the concepts Rogers analyzed presaged  viral marketing by what, 40 years, maybe?

How do ideas spread and products take off, I asked? Is the diffusion of innovations across networks (the unwired kind) dependent on a marketing and PR push? Derrick brought us a good point –that demand, could possibly be influenced by planned scarcity (as in Apple’s play); by game mechanics (as in earning rewards), and filling the need that nobody has quite recognized (as in Facebook).

Here’s the podcast, if you’re interested. http://bit.ly/your3bl11

By the way, if you occasionally use terms such as ‘early adopters,’ ‘late majority’ or ‘laggards’ you’ve been borrowing from Roger’s theory!

Wikipedia appears to beat media in Chilean miner rescue

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By chance I checked Wikipedia on the Chilean  miner rescue operation underway now (9.15 PM Pacific), and was pleasantly surprised to see two things going on:

The first was that Wikipedians are updating the site faster that Google results of news of the rescue operation.

San Jose Mercury News, Yahoo and others come up on search for ‘miner rescue’ with news

that one miner has been rescued.

Wikipedians noted that there have been two miners brought to the surface.

It took about another 10 minutes for the rest of the media reports to show up with this detail.

Meanwhile CBS News is streaming video via Ustream! http://ustre.am/2bWW

The second curious phenomenon will probably be discussed at length in the weeks after this. In what is clearly a sign of the times, where everyone is now a reporter,  the video from the mine captures at least two of the trapped miners photographing (or videoing maybe?) the event that they are part of!

Who’s watching what here? Who’s updating whom here? This is breaking news, and the subjects are reporting the story!

Imagine John Lennon in 140 characters

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Interesting statement from Yoko, on John Lennon’s anniversary:

“He would have been writing statements and sending them out to the world as a blogger and a tweeter.”

Of course working with word limitation forces the mind to pack meaning into powerful images. Consider how Lennon’s Imagine curtailed to 140 characters would have been just short of hitting the spot:

“Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today Imagine there’s no”

The famous refrain, however just takes 109 characters: “You may say I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one”

On a related note, this tribute was nicely done by Google:

Listen to the blogosphere, or else….

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My View | Bi-weekly Column in FT

 

Have you looked out of the window while your flight waited for takeoff and seen a small truck, barely the size of an airplane engine, pushing a huge 767 into position? It looks so ridiculous. But this small vehicle has the capacity to move a massive hunk of metal carrying hundreds of people and thousands of gallons of fuel. Not to mention luggage!

Sometimes it’s a bit like this in our world of communications. Social media humbles us when it demonstrates the power to give a big behemoth a bit of ‘pushback.’ And yes, there’s an airplane involved in this story –the Boeing company.

Continue to PDF of article – FT Online

What’s a novice like me doing shooting videos?

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I’m a photographer of sorts. Have been ever since I used a cheap point-and-shoot Kodak on a world leader. I hadn’t a clue about ‘depth of field’ then, and famously (naively, really) held it within a few inches of the face of John Paul II. They didn’t arrest you for getting too close to a Pontiff in those days.

So shooting videos has been a challenge. Instead of worrying about aperture and ISO rating, I’m now wondering about

  • Use a tripod or keep it natural and do hand-held?
  • Only shoot in natural light or work with the unflattering florescent bulbs?
  • Table top or wide angle?

Most of the cameras I have been using  have been built for novices. The ubiquitous Flip video cam, and my trusty Kodak PlaySport. Funny how it’s point-and-shoot all over again!

And so I’ve settled for happily taking the ‘non-pro’ route in video. The kind of stories I recently recorded have had colorful settings– on golf courses, in the kitchen, down a Disney-like ‘adventure trail’ for kids…

I was doing a video story of an executive chef, today. He was cooking up a lemon sole dish from scratch. The ‘scratch’ part to the photographer meant there was an array of ingredients to zoom in and out of, while he talked to camera, and moved around the kitchen. In still photography you don’t have to deal with things going in and out of focus.

Chef Ryker Brown picked up a gnarled tomato, scored it and submerged in a glass of iced water. It was interesting sidebar to the main dish; the lens whined, decided to stop being confused and locked in to focus.

As I watched it all come together, I realized that stories told in words are a lot like that too. While we hover around our subject, a sudden detail we previously ignored comes into sharp focus. It then plays a starring role in the story.

I’ve always loved tomatoes –the deformed, multi-colored ones that grow in our yard, not the shiny grocery store variety. They puzzle the eye, in the same way they confuse the camera lens. They also bring out a flavor to the otherwise mundane. If there’s a lesson in all this it’s about keeping your subject in focus, but not ignoring the blushing tomato on the side!

As for that early celebrity photo, I got a pretty good shot. I think. A big part of it was his nose, but hey!

What’s a ‘Great Place To Work?’ Podcast of radio show

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Employees are either ticked off or raring to go.  That’s the commonly held wisdom, right?

I wanted to find out and conducted a survey before my radio show, Your Triple Bottom Line.  Some pleasant surprises: A large percentage of responders have positive things to say about the workplace. (The survey is still open for a week, so that number could change.)

However, when asked to describe what a terrible place to work was, one respondent cited “Filth, blind micro-management, too many chiefs.”

Hmmm! Too many chiefs is a common refrain whenever I speak to companies about what’s the biggest stumbling block to a more collaborative workplace.

I conducted this snap survey because we were planning on asking our guest, a much-acclaimed author of the book Fired Up Or Burned Out, about what kind of leadership makes workplaces so dreary or at other times, inspiring. The book (it’s received great reviews on Amazon!) takes you into the ‘power of connection’ at work from the American Revolution to… Starbucks!

Show # 8 – with Michael Stallard

Download a PDF of the book free here.

Cross-posting this from the Show blog, Your3bl.com

Forget vanity plates. Your car’s about to get social!

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I used to joke about this a few years back: it would be only a matter of time when we were able to get ‘custom’ license plates that connect to your network instead of those static vanity plates. You know, another kind of URL that connects the dots to a social network.

Yikes! It’s here!

BUMP just launched at DEMO, the launchpad conference for tech companies.

Which means those cryptic, ridiculous (and often egoistic) plates could someday be channeled into a way to connect with others on the road. It works through an app on a Blackberry, Android or iPhone.

Here’s how the VentureBeat site describes how BUMP works:

“When Bump users see someone in a car they want to communicate with, they take a picture of the person’s license plate. The Bump iPhone app (pictured right) or a similar BlackBerry app passes along a message, like “Way to use turn signals” or “Would you like to go on a date?”

Wanted: A new formula for PR!

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FT Online, Angelo Fernando writes a Bi-weekly column

FT Online | Bi-weekly column

I don’t think there’s a single waterer-proof formula for PR.

No matter how much we love the Social media Press Release, (basically an enhanced press release, with some great links and embedded media to create a richer story), it seems like too much work for companies to build these.

Then there is the quest for that secret sauce of Public Relations that might involve a more integrated strategy. Translated: the PR agency works with the ad agency which works with the promotions company. Good luck with that!

So in a bid to stir up things I came up with my own formula for PR. Here it is in a nutshell. C + C + E = Tn.

Got it?

You need a decoder ring for this one, so here it is. Context plus Content plus Engagement equals Trust to the nth degree.

Continue reading…

This was the subject of a newspaper column, in a series I have been writing on, published in FT Online. Until the web site has been updated, this is a link to a PDF.

Anti-commercial on library throws ‘Spice’ on dry subject

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Who would want to make a commercial to promote a library? Videos of city centers and golf courses have built-in stories that are easy to tap into. But a library? They end up being like this! Or, for heaven’s sake, this –with slogans and beauty shots devoid of a story line!

So this commercial, which borrows heavily from the effects we have come to expect in Old Spice genre, is a lot of fun. OK, maybe they could have not been so liberal about stealing the copy approach ( “look at your man, now back to me, now back at your man…”) but I guess that’s what genius is, sometimes,”standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Shameless rip-off, or brilliant homage to a meme before it burns out?

Not everything this group does is that way, though. Take a look at this video on Roman citizenship, that is another way of spicing up a dry subject, even with with the standard Professor talking head.