Category Archives: The Internet

Probably the coolest toy any kid could want.

One Year Later: I Repeat – Apple Should Be Worried About Facebook

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About a year ago (5/26/2012), I wrote a blog post identifying Facebook as a company Apple needs to watch out for.  Here’s the article: 
http://zdubpost.com/2012/05/26/apple-needs-to-change-facebook-is-about-to-ruin-them/
  It’s a bit over the top when it comes to all the random graphs I through in, but it gets across one major point.  Apple has built all of its sharing products to only work inside the network formed by Apple devices, and Facebook (like Microsoft not too long ago) has built all of its tools to work on any device including Apple.

FB Home app image

Fast forward to today and more than 500K people have downloaded Facebook Home a new app that creates and home screen experience deeply rooted in your Facebook experiences.  More importantly Facebook is stepping up their engagement with a sub-sect of Android users, making FB’s utilities more valuable than the ones that come with their phone.  Specifically – Facebook Messager.  But to understand what FB has done, we first have to dig into two things, what they’re disrupting (iMessage) and what FB’s core focus is.

Group Messaging on iMessage has been a great long-term viral growth asset for the iPhone 

Tell me if this sounds familiar – The first friend in your group gets an iPhone, shows it off, it’s cool.  The second and third friend in your group get an iPhone a few months later, again they show it off, now they start showing their apps and it looks cooler.  You personally don’t feel a need for an iPhone because you see it as a luxury, or at least not great enough to justify switching plans.  But then a few things start happening; iPhones are now basically on every carrier, iPhone apps continue to get better and better, and by now like 5 of your 20 or so friends have them.  This is where iMessage takes over the sales pitch – you start getting texts from individual people but they’re clearly meant for a whole group.  You start seeing full conversations happening, but you only are getting bits and pieces of them, they aren’t easy to keep pace with on your phone.  You’re friend later that week shows you an iMessage group conversation on his iPhone and you realize, for him the conversation looks like a conversation.  Over time you’re phone number starts being left out of conversations, because you’ve had trouble keeping up with them, you tend not to engage in them as much, so you get forgotten from time to time.  At this point friends start having inside jokes you don’t understand and you feel a lot more pressure than you did before to buy a iPhone.  Now I’m not saying this is everyone’s experience, but it is literally the story of how I got an iPhone.  It’s not the reason it became a part of  my consideration set, but it was one of the major differentiators for me.  I suspect for Apple it’s a major tool to drive iPhone user growth after the initial early adopters in a social group buy one.

Who does Facebook want their customer to become

Facebook wants to change the way people communicate.  Facebook wants to make their users expect personalized experiences from what content they see, to what ads are shown, and so on.  Facebook as a company has done great things to nurture/build a user base that demands – TV on demand, custom news feeds just for them, and ads that are actually relevant verses interruptions.  (Talk to all the businesses in the world who rely on “spray and pray” marketing models to find relevant customers, most love Facebook as an ad platform but don’t realize the thing their customers are becoming makes every other ad channel less and less effective if they continue to “spray and pray”.)  In the pursuit of changing the way people communicate, raising people’s expectations of personalized experiences, and encouraging more engagement between networks (friends), FB also must aggressively pursue removing any and all barriers between its users and the tools that make those things happen.

Facebook Home is a problem for Apple

More than a year ago FB launched Facebook Messanger apps for Android, iOS, and all the other major mobile operating systems.  When they did this they extended the very popular one on one and group chat service from desktop to mobile.  It helped, in many groups Facebook Messanger replaced the text message, especially for group chat on mobile – taking share from both Android texting services and Apple’s iMessage.  Fast forward to Facebook Home and now they’ve gotten access at the operating system level on a select set of androids.  As of today they have 500K users and growing.  But that isn’t the stat that matters, what matters is how many people those 500K people talk to via text message on a regular basis.  A big trend of small apps over the last two years have gone after the iMessage problem I documented before, making their way into a lot of phones and making the idea of an internet based messaging service vs. tradition texting models pretty palatable for users.  Mobile users have shown they are ready to switch, they want effective group chat between all their friends… not just the other ones on Apple.  With Facebook Home, FB has created ~500K users already who have raised their hands to say “I want to use Facebook to communicate with friends because of the added values it brings”.

Value = group texting across phone, desktop, no matter the OS + text tracking that show’s who has seen what messages + low barrier to entry since all but 3% of my friends are already on Facebook.

The average person has about 10-20 people they talk to regularly via text, and many of those conversations are in groups.  If Facebook all of a sudden becomes the messaging platform of choice for 500K people, that means on a regular basis 5-10MM people are going to start having conversations on FB Messager.  As those 5-10MM people begin to convert to using FB Messager first they could start reaching 50-200MM people via FB Messager… And since this is a free software platform – no cost, or device type requirement creating a barrier to use – this adoption could happen pretty quickly.  As it does, iMessage will no longer be something the masses might consider to be a differentiator for iPhone.  As more and more features on the iPhone become table stakes for users to choose a smart phone, and the top 20% of AppStore Apps start appearing on both Android and iPhone – the mobile phone  market place is going to start looking a lot more like the desktop computer market place of the 1990′s.  Apple’s iPhone will just be another phone and they’ll have to invent another product category to keep growing.

This one app by Facebook isn’t going to take down Apple’s iPhone, but over time companies with similar missions to Facebook are going to take away Apple’s dominance on any connected device.  If your company is trying to build an exclusive in network experience like Apple, you better lead/invent your categories so you end up with a large lead.  Companies like Facebook and Google are in every category working to break down network walls to allow every person access to the world’s best tools.

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

The Power of Twitter in a Crisis

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Today something awful happened.  Two bombs exploded in Boston at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  I’ll let the news outlets talk to that, but I want to point out something unique about the world we live in today.

Today I discovered the news about what happened in Boston via Twitter – first from a few retweeted posts, then confirmed by a major news outlet I follow.  Then as the day progressed Twitter offered me a quick look at what was going on.  I also noticed on my desktop that my suggested follows had become charities, Boston government agencies, and news outlets.  As the day progressed various hashtags began to trend – identifying all the major stories as they surfaced throughout the day.  All of this with the context of those I’ve chosen to follow, along with a wider point of view as others joined the conversation.

Today is a day when we all need to reflect, think about who we are, and realize we are all small.  For me something bigger happened today – I realized I belonged to a community, a world-wide community filled with support, important information, and a wide reaching perspective.  As the 140 character community and others like it grow, the world becomes smaller and more together more and more the world is able to share its perspective.

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

There is More Than One Way to Listen

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how-to-be-a-good-listenerHad a very interesting day today, one filled with a number of moments of mentorship.  As a part of all the learning, there was a lot of listening… and most of the listening really wasn’t about the words people were saying.

What someone is saying is only about half of what they are saying:

What’s being said in a conversation is important, don’t get me wrong, but the ability to understand the context of what was happening and the emotion behind each conversation topic is so important.  We were in the midst of solving the world’s problems, you know because that’s totally what we were doing… and there was a moment when a mentor of mine was asked to deliver an explanation of his idea.  Watching him work was a learning moment – initially delivering the information slowly while he taught the room to understand his point of view, then speeding the pace of his speech he began to develop a concept of urgency behind what he was talking about, finally after some back and forth he stopped explaining things in detail and transitioned to a very high level summation of his thoughts.  In the end, it was the high level concept that ended up in the PowerPoint deck.  The learning moment wasn’t how the idea was present with detail and eventually thru conversation was brought down to a simple two sentences… any good business book could tell you to do that… the learning was in the way in which each stage was presented.  When educating speech patterns were slow, eye contact was very focused, and each new sentence of information was followed by a pause to give the opportunity for questions.  As the conversation moved from education to debate, the quicker pace and use of emphasis on certain words really hit home the point of urgency.  I realize these things seem pretty trivial, but a quality presentation combined with the right idea goes a lot further than just a good idea.

The context of what is said, is often more important than what is said:

Later in the day I got a phone call to help with this idea that was going to solve the world’s problems.  Immediately the person on the other side of the phone could identify the stress in my voice. (I realize this now, but not at the time)  Realizing my stress they took a supporting role as the context from which they were speaking.  Calmer speech patterns followed.  The conversation covered the same information it would have no matter the context each of us was talking from, but because of the context the conversation was in we were able to build to a larger plan.  In this scenario, it was me playing the role asking questions and starting ideas and my counterpart of the phone offering answers and presenting new ways to unlock/accomplish the task at hand.  It’s important to understand who you’re talking to in terms of the context of your conversation, it often makes all the difference in productivity and a wasted 30 minutes.

Words are Words are Words… so don’t use so many of them:

Body Language, Pace of Speech, and the Context of a conversation are important… but also are the words you use, especially the amount you use.  If you can’t tell by this and all of my posts, I struggle with the concept of less is more when it comes to my words.  People don’t want to learn every piece of information about a topic, that just shows you “know” something.  People want you to take all that information and summarize it to its most important points, that shows you “understand” something.  Even one step further, when you’re asked a question that clearly should get a response that is one word… just answer in one word.  (This happened like six times today, I promise one day I’ll answer a question “Yes” or “No”.)

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

 

Why a “Favorite” on Twitter is better than a “Like” on Facebook

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facebook_logo
It’s not news to anyone that there are a lot of behavioral concepts at work when users explore networks like Twitter and Facebook.  While companies keep digging to solve for the value of a “Like” on a Facebook page or a “Follow” on a Twitter account, have you ever stepped back and thought what some of these “actions” mean to you personally.  I had a moment today when Twitter made me smile.  @arifuchs someone I respect, “favorited” one of my tweets, specifically a blog post I did a few days ago.  I’m going to be honest, when similar folks  ”liked” the post on my Facebook wall I don’t get the same joy.  So here’s my attempt at explaining why…

Twitter is a very Public platform assuming you don’t have a locked account and Facebook is a very private platform assuming you don’t share everything on a public setting.  In contrast the actions you take on

the platforms directly oppose their overall feeling of public or private.  They both have “ReTweet” and “Share” buttons that basically create a “Hey everybody! Look at this cool thing I found!”  They also have reaction options such as “Reply” and  ”Comment” which allow for somewhat private reactions to content.  Finally, there are the passive action buttons of “Like”

and “Favorite” – these I see as having very different functions.  On

the surface both allow you to throw some “Kudos” to the user, but the way the “Kudos” is delivered makes all the difference. ..

Personal vs. Public

When someone “Likes” your content on Facebook they are saying to everyone else who see’s that content, I like this.  While at the same time triggering a heads up to you that they “Like” your content.  The experience is more a public display than private.  When someone “Favorites” a tweet it doesn’t become a focal point of the tweet like on Facebook, rather it is subtly added to the full info of the tweet if a user clicks into it.  All this while again triggering a heads up to you that they like what you tweeted.  The experience is much more personal, given the only incentive behind the action of a “Favorite” is to support the content creator.

Direct vs. Indirect

Going one step further, I see a “Like” as an indirect form of support.  Since there is an incentive to publicly associate one’s self with good content, the psychology that drives someone to “Like” content creates an indirect sort of “Kudos”.  Again with the “Favorite”, since there isn’t a “to be seen” quality to the action, it feels like a much more direct and real action of support.

twitter-bird-white-on-blueRelationships with Many vs. Few

In my private Facebook network it makes perfect sense for those who support my content to be pretty obvious.  (The listed “Likes”)  In a public network (Twitter) however, it makes a lot of sense to really focus on the content first then as sub-content (hidden) offer up who is involved. (“ReTweets” and “Favorites”)  This brings me to something I think is at the core as to the difference between Facebook and Twitter form a high level:  Facebook for most part is a fundamentally private network that creates (because it’s a closed system) one large shared relationship with many, while Twitter for the most part is a public network that creates (because it’s an open system) many relationships with few.  On Twitter short-lived social relationships sprout, grow, and die every day making the platform new (to a point) to the user every time they invest time on Twitter, whereas Facebook is one very large long-term relationship reflected in an ever-growing experience where the user gains their value over a long period of time.  There is a reason your profile (“Timeline”) on Facebook is so important to you as it is built from your content, while most people only focus on the content they post on Twitter in the now (real-time) - their long-term profile really isn’t a big part of the experience.

So if you can’t tell, I like Twitter a lot.  But that’s mostly because over the time I’ve built out my Facebook “Timeline” I had a major change in who I am… and who my network is.  I graduated college and moved on to a working world miles away both physically and mentally, making a large portion of the “Timeline” I had built into only a memory rather than an active long-term relationship.  For me both platforms are great, but only in their purpose, which brings me back to the title.  At the end of the day I’ll always value private displays of support over public ones.  Maybe its just me.

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

If You Know What You’re Doing, It’s Probably Time to Quit Your Job

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Recently I found a podcast series called “Foundation” hosted by Kevin Rose the former founder of Digg.  As many of my friends know, I usually spend about an hour a day on the train on my way back and forth to the office.  When I’m on the train I’m usually listening to business books and lectures.  (I’m a nerd.)  In college I used to go running for an hour or so every day and listened to Stanford’s free Entrepreneurial Thought Leadership lectures on iTunes U.  (I’m a long time nerd.)  My senior year I even conducted my own version of founder interviews, asking my peers in student leadership to share their stories with me for a book I never exactly got around to writing.  In all this time I’ve learned a lot from all these people and their experiences, but today I had a eureka moment listening to an interview between Brian Wong and Kevin Rose in the “Foundation” podcast series.

foundation podcastIn listening to 6-7 years worth of entrepreneurs and leaders I’d never noticed that they all had something in common… they didn’t know what they were doing.  Brian in referencing his own success mentioned the concept of a table of skilled poker players having an unskilled player joining the table.  The skilled poker players all know what to do, how to respond, when to take risk… they’re moves are pre-determined.  Add a player who doesn’t know what to do, and all of a sudden all the assumptions that determine the skilled players choices are gone.  The unskilled player becomes the table leader, becomes the person everyone else has to react to.  Sometimes that unpredictability creates new opportunity and the unskilled player ends up winning.

So I’m not sure labeling many successful folks as “unskilled” is the right comparison, but it does a pretty good job of identifying what differentiates many of the success stories in innovation.  When you don’t know what the right thing to do is, you create variations in the process… that’s how discovery happens.  When you don’t know the right way to be introduced to people, you’re tactics for meeting people ends up being different… and memorable… and more effective.  Not knowing what they’re doing isn’t the only key to success – pretty sure if it was we’d all be doing a bit better – but it is something you don’t want to forget.  Knowledge is power, but perspective is reality, and if you let what you think you know fully inform your perspective you’re no longer learning.

Now for the title of this blog post – If you know what you’re doing, it’s probably time to quit your job.  Not sure that concept applies to most, but for me I have a real problem with the idea of knowing what I’m doing.  It messes with the idea of free will for me – if I know what to do next, then my future is predetermined.  I really have trouble staying motivated when I know rest of the story.  (I’m that guy who never buys movies because it’s really hard for me to watch the same movie twice.)  I came into this blog post trying to write an explanation of “motivation”… as it turns out I found one of my own motivations.

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

Why I write blog posts… Practice, Practice, Practice – Real-Time Critical Thinking

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Someone asked me the other day, “Why do you bother writing a blog? No one reads it.”  So I thought about it for a few minutes, triple checked my visitor numbers to save my ego from shrinking too much, and I figured out exactly why I bother to write blog posts.  It’s practice.  Or as the book I’m reading currently, The Talent Code, would call it – “Deep Practice”.

critical-thinking

So here’s the thing, I have but one skill in life that differentiates me.  I’m usually able, through real-time critical thinking, to piece together needs or parts of a story to understand the larger vision for an idea.  Literally my old boss called me “the ideas guy”.  I honestly don’t have many unique ideas, almost everything I build out is a conglomeration of many different ideas and needs of stakeholder all rolled into one vision.  That’s what I do.  The thing about real-time critical thinking is that it doesn’t come naturally, it’s a talent I have because I constantly argue… with myself.  All day long I read and absorb as much information about as many things as possible, I read a lot of tweets and blog posts.  Unfortunately reading a bunch of information only arms you with the weapons for real-time critical thinking… it doesn’t exactly teach you how to use them.

There are only three ways I’ve found to actually learn how use real-time critical thinking – all of them are basically practice.

1.  Debate with the people around you.  The trick here is you need to work with smart people with diverse backgrounds, otherwise you won’t learn much in terms of point of view.  For example the Social Media team and entire E-Commerce team at Walgreens is filled with a ton of smart people, motivated by different things, with different perceptions of the world.  It’s a great group to talk to… but the key to it isn’t team brainstorms or over crowded meeting, it’s all about small group conversations.  The one’s that pop up by the coffee machine, or in my case the once that happen when I seemingly randomly walk around to people’s desks and pick their brains.  There’s debate to be found outside work as well (remember my point about diverse backgrounds), my girlfriend works in HR, I spend a lot of my free time with a friend group made up of Insurance Actuaries, most of my college friends work in health care or engineering, and I always have an open invitation to grab a beer with anyone if they’re willing to “talk shop”.

2.  Arguing with yourself is useful.  When I read articles I usually pause a number of times as I’m reading and take the points of the article and walk through all the different arguments in my head.  Most of that time this leads to me taking 20 minutes to read a blog post that should probably only take 3 minutes to read.  On the other hand it makes the information much more valuable to me… not only do I know the data, but now I know how to use it. (in theory)  Think of it this way.  If I give you all the variables (you read the blog post) but no equation what good are they?  The self argument is where I find myself discovering the sets of equations that the variables fit into.

3.  Blogging is the last part of this practice model.  If you’ve very read my blog, it feels a lot like I’m just talking.  (not exactly top class literature)  Often there are a few spelling or grammar errors too.  The reason for this is my writing style, which I learned while writing comedy sketches at Second City’s workshops, it’s basically improv writing.  Meaning you literally write your train of thought.  (Usually you don’t stop you thought to fix spelling or grammar…  Although, I am trying to get better with that.)  So for me, blogging is a form of deep practice where I can pick a topic and write on it… forming an argument and a point of view as I go calling on all the inputs I’ve had access to.  Working the brain muscle that also is used in meeting rooms and brainstorms, where real-time critical thinking is so important to getting the group past a white board of random thoughts.

So that’s my long way of explaining the purpose of my blog.  For those who read it and enjoy the content, thanks.  For those who don’t read it, no worries.

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

Digital Branding Dilemma, Empires vs. City-States and Solutions Driven by Incentives not Logic

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So here is the dilemma.  Brands want to be “digital”, so the agency models who serve those brands have re-aligned to offer “digital” services, but the incentives that drive agency decision-making haven’t changed since the TV commercial was invented.  Now step back and look at the digital marketing universe in terms of the brands who use it – there seem to be two very clear approaches in play; Empire Building and City-State Refinement/Centralization.  (I’ll go into more detail on what the heck those words mean in a bit.)  Now here’s the issue… the production/services model of the “traditional” agency drives strategies of digital empire building, but time and time again we see the City-State brands winning online.

Building an “Interactive” Empire

Empire building is a fairly common practice in the business world.  Almost every business metric that measures a company’s performance is based in growth and expansion.  In the retail world it’s often driven by new markets entered by buying competitors or building new stores.  In tech it’s often driven by adding new features or building new product lines.  In the consumer packaged goods space its seems to be all about new flavors and new product types.  At the end of the day it’s about constant “growth”, which is often measured in locations, shelf-space, or installs.  So you can see how when a marketing team or agency pitches to its “business leaders” the idea of growth into new markets they love the idea.  The problem is… that’s not how the digital world usually works.  Last time I checked micro-sites are poor performers unless you are spending a ton of money to send people there, meaning they don’t retain customers rather only offer a single engagement.  Building a micro-site is the equivalent of building a store in a low traffic area, getting shelf space way in the back where no one is looking, or adding a new feature that only impacts 1% of users.  These concepts of growth aren’t going to work over time, rather only when advertised.

ancient-greece-mapThe core part to Empire Building is in the sales pitch, often to a large multi-product or services organization.  It’s very hard to sell in a “strategy” of “we need to continue building on our core properties”.  Rather everyone is happy when you pitch the idea of “expanding to reach new customers”.  The problem is that expansion strategy while sounding smart for business is often not, these concepts often involve building/creating many different destinations inside the digital ecosystem.  However the problem with that is the digital ecosystem is a portal to anywhere in one step – so every website/experience is just as easy to get to as the next.  This is a very difficult concept for most business owners to understand in large matrix organizations, because they don’t see the whole picture, rather they want something just for them.  You know just like in the “growth” oriented business model they follow.

Building a Centralized City-State

A Centralized City-State gets its model from the myth of a brand focused community.  It’s not that they’re aren’t brand focused communities in the world, it just that in 99% of cases your Facebook page isn’t one of them.  Centralized City-States are the brands who have chosen to keep things simple for the customer.  If you search the brand name, you’re only going to find 1 of everything, or you’ll only find the brand in places that directly connect with the brand’s core experience.  In this model the brand focuses on building long-term entities that represent the whole, rather than short-term campaigns that satisfy one part of the brand/company’s “growth” model.  These are the companies that stick to their guns around the idea of “one brand, one message”.  These are the brands that sometimes don’t even bother with social media, or only have one website, or use digital to extend their products rather than their marketing.

The model of centralization was the core of the first digital plan any company puts in place, just like every major power in history basically started as a city-state.  The first extension into digital is often one centralized experience, and often works pretty well.  But that’s the point when harsh decisions about “growth” come into play – what is the trade-off to building many different experiences?  Well I’ll put it this way, from a business perspective I completely agree with a “growth” model of building an empire, compared to history the most successful countries in the old world where larger empires that ruled many resources such as Persia, Rome, China, and even England years later.  That said, the digital marketing space doesn’t have the same resource limitations of the real world, rather it is an infinite space.  The only resource that is actually scarce is people, “users” is the metric that drives digital.  So if that’s the case, it’s not about the real world resources you have, rather the users you influence.  Now look back into history and identify from where the most influence on culture came… great cities were the great champions such as Athens, the City of Rome, the City of Paris, and the City of London – not the empires.

Agency Incentive Models

2012-Digital-Marketing-Cloud1So with those two concepts in place, I’m guessing its pretty clear which way I lean.  The problem I have is that the model from which an agency (the entities most often entrusted with spreading a brand) works in digital doesn’t align the clearly correct way.  Now I’m not saying agencies are bad, just disadvantaged by their incentives in the digital space.

Agencies are a supporting function to the client in most cases.  In a supporting role the entity in charge of the brand is often not speaking to one centralized stakeholder, rather working with many different stockholders.  In this model they often have a brand statement and concept they’re going to apply to all things around this brand.  The problem is while having a tag-line and look-&-feel planned out automatically solves for any centralization problems on TV or Radio, it doesn’t really address digital.  Enter now a number of stakeholder who each want their unique thing.  This puts agencies in a position of serving the client, rather than the client’s brand.  (In theory you hire an agency to say “No”, but their incentives over time will drive them to say “Yes”.)

Agencies are outside entities, this sucks for them.  They don’t really get the insider’s experience… often causing them to missing out on a lot of context that would help them in a situation where they have to protect the brand from a client.

Agencies are self-policing.  I’m not sure how this industry pulled this one-off, but they’re work is judged by their peers.  The way agencies are graded as “good” or “bad” is often determined by a number of awards that are given out by, you guessed it, other agencies.  This creates a major creative dilemma – awards, especially in digital, are given to the most “innovative” campaigns.  This is a problem because the agency in most cases can’t share their client’s results, so the definition of innovative is in the creative.  Meaning to win, creative teams are tasked with creating new experiences, the kinds that often require a new blank canvas to build from.  This drives agencies over time to push for empire building.

Agencies are a business too, this isn’t a bad thing just something that needs to be understood.  In order for them to make money they need to keep checks from clients coming.  It’s not that they need to keep getting more and more work, but that it’s a lot easier to retain a client when all of the various company stakeholders are happy and the company keeps winning awards.

Digital Strategy

I’ve covered a lot in this blog post, so here are the basic points summed up.

1.  Empire Building is a great business model, but it doesn’t translate to digital.  The digital world has only one scarce resource in the user, and because of that centers of influence have more impact than resource driven empires.

2.  Centralization of experience builds extended brand offering in the long-term – the most important of which is the retained user, who begins to view the marketing experience as a destination.

3.  Agencies who have simply translated the original model that works so well for TV and Radio to digital are starting to find it hard to succeed in their new matrix of incentives.

Finally I want to end on something I preach often.  The people in charge of digital marketing in an organization (all of them) need to be incredibly integrated into the business and its needs in order to produce strategic long-term results in growing influence rather than short-term results in one time visits.

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

The Books I Read (Listened to) in 2012

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So starting this year, I made a resolution that I’d “read more”.  I quickly discovered the best way to actually do that was to listen to books on my phone while I took the train to and from work.  Below are the books I read (listened to) in 2012 and a short review of the book.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

If you’re in a tech related field this book is very interesting, and should probably be read.  If you’re not it really carries two basic messages – 1) With the power of your own will you can drive to your goals and 2) Anything is possible – see this link to fully get it: STEVE JOBS ADVICE

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

As it turns out Albert Einstein is the most interesting person I’ve ever read about.  Having only historical knowledge about him going into the book, I felt like I learned a lot about what life was like in his time along with what revolutionary really means.  It’s a very long book, but the story is worth that time.

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson

So I’m totally a history nerd – if you hadn’t noticed from my previous posts.  Ben Franklin to me is someone I never really got to know as a figure in history and the biography Walter Isaacson compiles is great.  Similar to the Einstein book its long, but the substance is very good – showing off a number of insights into Franklin’s various motivations throughout life.

Good to GreatGood to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… And Others Don’t by Jim Gollins

I’d encourage anyone I work with to read this.  Puts a lot of things in perspective in the context of working at Walgreens, but also at a large company that is growing.  (READ THIS)  Suggested to me by Jasbir Patel

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

So the title of this book includes “Why We Do What We Do”… which if you know me is kind of my thing.  The book itself has a lot of good insights in it around how habits form and how they evolve, including a number of great examples of the theories at work.  Not something I’d see most people reading but if you’re in the business of building business it has a lot of great insights for a startup.

Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer

This book drove me to do what it’s title says.  I will admit that while listening to this book I had some of my better ideas of the year.  I couldn’t identify one specific thing it did for me, but I can identify the state of mind it provided me.  I’d encourage anyone in the ideas business read and enjoy it.

Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck — Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins

So I liked Good to Great so much that I got this book too.  It was just as good, complete with a number of additional insights on driving company growth and evolving the right way.  (READ THIS…TOO)

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

Great Book, one that I plan to re-listen to again and again.  Suggested to me by Adam Kmiec

Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple’s Success by Ken Segall

This book basically was just a guy showing off that he knew Steve Jobs.  It had one good insight and its in the title… just make life simple.  Make the experience simple.  Make your decisions based on simple principles.

The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries

If you in your life ever plan to lead or build a product/service that is customer facing please READ THIS BOOK!  This was a referral from my at the time boss Rich Lesperance.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

This book is a blend of the concepts covered in the Imagine book and the Habits book – making it a good read but not something filled with great “new” insights.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene

Do you work in Corporate America… if so this book is basically a guide to politics sourced from 16th century insights about court life.  A great read for those who want to “Play Chess, not Checkers“.

An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek

This is a history book, I’m a history nerd… so it worked for me.  Most people will find it dry.

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

This is a behavioral sciences book on crack.  Read it and let it drive your creative side… you’ll be surprised at how you start seeing the tasks at hand.

The Talent Code: Unlocking the Secret of Skill in Sports, Art, Music, Math, and Just About Everything Else by Daniel Coyle

A book based in neuroscience, it has a lot of interesting points about how we evolve as humans to be able to accomplish great things with well thought out practice.  I’d suggest it to anyone in a growth period of their life as it offers a strong perspective on how to get the most out of the time you spend on something.

So those are the books.  My next books include Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and Truman by David McCullough, but I’m always looking for new suggestions so feel free to let me know others you think should be read.

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

#Sandy is quite a Social Storm, and Why That’s Great

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The ability of social media and technology to drive awareness is amazing.  From youTube sensation “Gangnam Style” – 592 Million views at the time of this post – to real world problems like a major hurricane heading to the Northeast.  I’m not going to do much in this article other than marvel at the impact social media has had already on #Sandy, and what it might have done on #Katrina.

In the past 7 days – October 22 – October 29 approx 12 CT vs. the 7 days leading up to Katrina.

Twitter:

~184,000 Tweets have been shared containing either the words “#Sandy”, “Sandy”, or “Hurricane”.

~0 Tweets were shared, as twitter wasn’t a public tool until 2006

Facebook:

Currently ~66% of the US population is on FB, with ~33% of those checking it daily

Versus in 2005, when in August the only people with Facebook were on college campuses.

Real time Photos:

Not only do we have all kinds of ways to reach people, but we also have a very powerful way to show what’s coming.  66%+ of Cell Phone owners have “smart phones” giving them the ability to report what they see to their social circles, literally.  (Every smart phone has a camera and an internet connection.)

Phones with both cameras and internet connections were not heavily adopted in 2005, there was no instant archive of what was happening.

What this all means:

I’ve said a number of times that “Perspective is Reality”.  For most of us hurricanes and other major events aren’t real, I personally have never been through one so how could I ever know how much it impacts a group of people.  And more importantly how could I be able to understand the urgency of the situation without a real-time perspective?  That’s why Social Media is a great thing, it offers the world instant perspective.  It offers a great conversation in which everyone can take part, where we can debate, show, and understand with the perspective of others.  For many people the awareness of what’s going on in the Northeast this week will be much higher than what they had during Katrina.  (Both the general population, and the folks that are directly in the path of the storm.)

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West

Play Chess, not Checkers – Does Your Decision Making Scale?

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Too many people want to make things simple.  When it comes to user experience this is correct, but when it comes to the rest of the world… it is just DUMB.  In meetings often the leader of the meeting will try to set up a simple problem and look for a straightforward solution to it.  I refer to this as “playing checkers” -

-Checkers is a very basic game.  The goal is clearly laid out – complete elimination of the opponent’s pieces.  The method in which a player can eliminate another player’s pieces is simple, you have to jump it.  There is only one form of attack, only one thing the opponent needs to defend against.  Often attacks are driven by an implied stalemate when a user has to make a move to put himself in harm’s way.  It’s a game in which often the winning strategy is reactionary and not planned out.

When you only see a problem in a bubble you run into a lot of issue later on.  One of the most familiar examples of this is in technology when the tech work is done by outside or outsourced firms.  When someone in a separate company from your own is given a set of tasks to accomplish, what is their perspective?  Well it is that of a checkers player – the task is straight forward, there is only one goal, only one thing the developer needs to defend against (not completing the task).  This creates a lot of risk to the overall project, if each individual part of the project is carried out by individuals who are not a part of the larger planning process, development is done without awareness of how this small part of the project and the way it is coded might impact the overall product.  When everything is simplified it often overlooks the complexity of the long-term impact of the work.

Another situation that happens a lot, is how people/personalities act in meeting rooms.  For example, that person who always acts like this meeting and this small part of the project is by far the most important thing happening in the world right now.  Context is critical to making good decisions, it’s also very complex.  Don’t for a second think things are always as simple as they look on paper.  This is what’s being overlooked by the person who can’t see outside of their current meeting.  Making decisions and working in a meeting based on context and not current events is what I would refer to a “playing chess” -

-Chess is a more complex game.  The goal is clear – kill the king.  The method in which a player can eliminate the king isn’t as simple.  Instead of every piece having the same capabilities, there are rather 9 different types of pieces on the board each with different capabilities.  The opponent can’t, as in checkers, quickly scan the board and see all risks based on one reactionary concept… Rather the opponent must now look at a lot of different risks that may be on the horizon, as well as think more than just one turn ahead as many complex risks may be developing.  It’s a game in which the winning strategy is dynamic and requires complex thought across many turns, both for the player and their opponent’s turns.  Chess requires a player to understand the context behind the moves on the board rather than just the risks offered by each individual turn.

So to bring this to a close, when thinking on a problem.  Don’t only look at the individual problem, dig into its context.  Why is this a problem, what is causing it, does it need to be solved soon, will it lead to future problems?  Then with that context layer in who’s providing the problem, asking all the same questions you just asked yourself but now from the other points of view in the room.  Next incorporate the contextual impact of the solutions offered, what are their after effects, what new problems will they create, does the solution impact other things?  Finally, close the loop of context and with a new perspective on the issue make a decision.

An old boss once said the following to me: “the reason I trust you in those meetings is because you’re playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers.”  At the time I didn’t understand the compliment.  Now, years later I’m realizing how important that way of thinking is.  Great ideas, great solutions, don’t come from brainstorms.  The best solutions develop out of the context: situational, political, technological, and personal.

Ever wonder if your decisions will scale?  Well here’s a better question – Do you play checkers or do you play chess?

Thanks for Listening,

Zach West