Disruptive

Visualization meets communication – my new job

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

A new phase of my career kicked in this week at ASU. I’ve joined the Decision Theater. A perfect fit for my deep interest in technology and collaborative media.

Excuse the brochure-speak, but if you’ve never stepped into an “immersive environment” on the edge of information technology this is it. The thing that strikes me is how useful it would be to apply this blend of informatics and visualization to other disciplines. Marketers and analysts who value pattern recognition will relate to this high end visualization.

If you’ve dabbled in database mismanagement, you know that spreadsheets and bar charts in spiral-bound books don’t quite set people’s heartbeats racing. Which would you prefer: reading a 90-page document on the ‘water atlas’ or moving a slider to see what happens to the community when reservoir levels dip? Data in 3D, and information presented as alternative scenarios make us want to do something, because we don’t live in one dimensional worlds.

Speaking of which, there was a lot of talk in the last year that the web as we know it is quietly gravitating to a “3D web.” For now it’s a visually interactive web, but the visualization part is making quantum leaps.

Let me know if you would like to see what the future of decision making looks like.

Live Blogging Police Officers – new job title?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

New media has made us wear a lot of new hats. It’s also created new job titles such as CBO (Chief Blogging Officer), Manager of Digital Convergence, and Virtual World Bureau Chief (the chap from Reuters, hanging out in Second Life.)

But who’s going to be the one managing (as in snooping on) live blogging at NCAA games? They announced that there will be certain times blogging will be permitted during games. Does that mean there will be a posse armed with wi-fi detectors and binoculars roaming the stands to see who’s thumb typing on a smart phone?

CC turns five. Copy that!

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Creative Commons the organization that introduced the world and content creators to the value of double c’s (instead of the stifling “c”) turns five today.

It was started byStanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, Cyberlaw, and intellectual property experts in 2002.

From New York to Bangalore, there are live parties going on.  They’re even serving what’s known as ‘open source water.’ And Free Beer, brewed using an open source recipe. Really!

If you’re interested, see my longer post about the Creative Commons, at ValleyPRBlog.

Let’s drink to this!

Building a list of hits and misses in PR, Marketing, Social Media, Communications

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I am compiling a list of things that went wrong, and the things that greatly improved PR, communications and marketing this year. Locally, nationally, across the pond.

Got any suggestions?

Some directions:

1. Most embarrassing PR moments.

2. Stupid quotes, and also the most eloquent ones.

3. About face. People or organizations who have done a 360.

4. Most hyped event, product, person.

5. The best damn PR promo you have seen in 2007.

6. Great moments for social media.

Submit it as a comment or email me.

Unlike the ‘npov’ policy at Wikipedia, agencies may submit!

Taking design to a different plane – Part 2

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Sometimes great design means using a different lens than the ones we walk around with. I’m not talking of camera work, but biases, hang-ups, and things we are so passionate about (in a good way) that prevent us from seeing things from the audiences perspective.

If you’ve always done direct mail campaigns, at least explore what might have changed in the ‘direct’ world with privacy, loyalty, database management etc. If you’re always doing landscape layouts for ads, look at what an split-page media buy might achieve. If you have a reputation for doing soft-focus, try grainy, or even degraded fonts, or sharp contrasty black and white.

If you’re a slave to the Logo guide… don’t even get me started. If you’re doing billboards with the standard clever headline and head shot, try something like this billboard for Gain detergent.

I got thinking about this after yesterday’s post on Ideo, and seeing the work of a photographer Joe McNally who talks about looking for “a different angle.”

He could have very well been talking about marketing campaigns, looking for fresh ways to communicate.

Check out McNally: The moment it clicks

Taking design to a different plane – Part 1

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

We think of design and designers are some special gift, or a craft that only few are called to perform. Wrong! I was blown away by listening to Tim Brown of Ideo who expounded on just this subject.

“We’ve lived through 50 or 60 years of design being “owned” by designers. We were this priesthood of people that get educated to be designers. We were the ones ‘allowed” to be creative…And now technology, particularly the web and open API’s and all other kinds of technology is allowing more normal people to participate in the design process.”

Brown went on to say “designers better look out because we’re gonna have to participate in it in a very different way than we’ve been used to.”

So I was impressed at this new participation fostered by he Tech Museum of Innovation which focuses on technology and innovation, has dived into virtual worlds –specifically Second Life, where you could become a virtual curator, and even exhibit your work in-world. It believes in both ‘spontaneous’ design and a more structured, disciplined approach.

The old ‘priesthood’ has to be worried!

XO: The laptop powered by Wikinomics

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Nicholas Negroponte‘s concept of a low cost computer has been pooh poohed by many big corporations that it is a crippled machine, and a $100 machine was unrealistic. But he has proven them wrong.

The little green “XO,” described by as “a flexible, ultra-low-cost, power-efficient, responsive, and durable machine,” developed in collaboration with MIT Media Lab, is a reality. It’s Linux-based, and has programming, a search engibe, chat program, word processing, rudimentary blogging capability, and connect to the Net via a mesh network.

Most interesting is the ‘social sharing’ concept built in to the applications. Children (or their teachers) could “reshape, reinvent, and reapply their software, hardware, and content.” It’s Wikinomics in action! No wonder its critics are scared.

Gifting an XO: I though this idea of getting it into the hands of more children was brilliant. Called the “Give one, get one” program, you could buy a $100 laptop for yourself and they will donate one to a child in a developing country. Hundred bucks for two laptops! No wonder its critics are agitated.

Seth and Jeremiah on Social Media

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I just attended a webinar on Using Social Media to grow your business. They discussed Meatball Sundae, and PR, and how the millennials ought to make us change the way we communicate with them.

Seth spoke of how people often think of PR in terms of ‘managing your company’ and it’s image, or straightforward ‘publicity.’ It just doesn’t work that way, he said because of the way social media works. Beating up on journalists won’t get you the media you want. Case in point the iPhone launch. Everyone seemed to think of it as a hyped up event, Seth pointed out. But the truth is, Apple’s PR people did not go after the media. They made a product so good that it had a story to tell.

Lesson for PR folks. Don’t be afraid to tell your boss or your marketing department that no, you won’t promote the product unless it has something newsworthy. I guess the lesson for organizations trying to massage the media with PR is this.  Don’t create press releases out of non-stories.

The other speaker that drew me to the event was Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Publicity stunt or graffiti?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Sometimes art and ‘stunt’ exchange marker pens. Or in this case, aerosol cans.

Bansky, the British graffiti artist (who placed an inflatable doll of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner at a Disney theme park last year) is promoting his art on the famous security wall between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, with images like this.

This stunt is timed with the move to bring tourists back to Bethlehem.

Bansky had a sound bite that beats anything the city could do to draw visitors concerned about their safety.

“If it is safe enough for a bunch of sissy artists then it’s safe enough for anyone,” he said.

Facebook scrutiny good for everyone

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The debate about the backlash against Facebook’s moves into contextual advertising with Beacon doesn’t seem to end. That’s a good thing.

It’s good for marketers and communicators to be thinking of these issues beyond the potential for targeting accurately, and being able to measure everything. We take networking so much for granted, especially the ability to befriend a friend of a friend of a friend, that we could easily muddy social interests with commercial goals.

The problem is, when we start, even inadvertently, sending people in our network things they never asked for or don’t need to know. Like ads. Or how about getting “poked?” I never bargained for being “bitten,” but between these and “cause invitations” and “likeness quizzes” (if you don’t know what I am talking about, I ENVY YOU!) people seem to be spending way too much time –mine- on such Facebook bling.

On other social nets do I have to really be updated the second someone changes his/her profile? Plaxo was a major offender in this area some time ago. It earned the term “Plaxo Spam.” Facebook ought to have known it was tinkering with the underpinnings of the ‘social graph’ when they got into Beacon..

Long before online social nets, the practice of friends befriending people in grocery stores and parking lots gave a bad name to companies like Amway. We have to be careful about putting networking and targeting in the same cocktail shaker. I Googled “Amway and Facebook” and came across a brilliant quote from Robert Scoble. “I will not Amway my Facebook friends.”

No one could have put it better.

Sidebar: I posted this to ValleyPRBlog. It was a hilarious YouTube video poke at the stalking, “poking,” and friending phenomenon.