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As a follow up to our earlier post today, we came across another good article further emphasizing the need to actively monitor and protect your brand.
Tim Lynch, senior experience design specialist at Molecular, explores the concept of brand-jacking. "If your brand is online, it's susceptible to consumer influence -- both benign and malicious. See what steps your company can take to mitigate the risks."
AIGA, the professional association for design has taken the charge to "Get Out the Vote," by creating an outlet for AIGA members (to participate, you gotta join) to design around the simple message to vote on election day 2008.Through print posters and YouTube submissions, AIGA has welcomed designers to "create" around this important call to action.
Since 2000, the AIGA initiative has welcomed the design and distribution of videos, motion graphic pieces as well as print materials like Get out the Vote posters.
"AIGA invites its members to create nonpartisan videos and motion graphics pieces that inspire the American public to participate in the electoral process and vote for a presidential candidate in the 2008 general election."
This year, the Get Out the Vote 2008 posters reflect a wide variety of styles and treatments, including many familiar iconic pop culture influences.
As AIGA notes, "good design makes choices clear."
Be sure to view the rest at AIGA Get Out the Vote 2008 posters, including the set of 24 posters chosen for professional printing and national distribution. You can also download any of them available on the AIGA Web site as PDFs to save and print, like this one!
Also, be sure to view and share the video of 50 selected posters as well as the AIGA YouTube channel for more info.
We find there is a continuous challenge in the workplace as Organization 2.0 continues to impact, morph and mashup disciplines that were without question very clearly defined. Take the evolution of the I.T. department, for example. I just came across Steve Smith's 2006 post, Web Development and Information Technology that posed the question: Should Web development be housed under I.T.? I recognize tremors can be felt along much of the organizational fault lines by even posing such a question in many structured organizations, but it's interesting to consider, particularly as new lines are drawn and cross-functional teams are formed in today's Web 2.0 organizational structure.
The essence of Smith's post notes that each discipline within the Web development lifecycle contributes to the process and that contributors must work "hand in hand" to fully create a successful online experience. The post breaks down the territorial stance of where "Web development" lies within the organization. It also clarifies, which is refreshing, the difference between "Web development" and "Information Technology," which seems to be a common identity crisis in many evolving IT organizations.
So, in 2008, is this question, "What does Web Development have to do with Information Technology?" still relevant, important, even controversial? Are organizations shifting and changing to create more cross-functional "interaction" teams or standing firm as independent skill-based silos?
What I love most in this post is Smith's take up front about Web development:
"IT is a necessary part of keeping the web alive, but one that is so separate from the creation of a website that it makes me laugh every time I think about it. Information Technology is, and always should be, concerned with the reliability, stability, and effectiveness of serving a website. Those creating websites should focus their complete attention on the effectiveness of the message, the design, the interface and the content."
What's your thought? How do you define today's Web Team? Does it reside in one camp or another other? Is the modern enterprise ready for dynamic, non-traditional organizational structure that is collaborative and multi-disciplinary lead by specialists and championed by "customer evangelists?" How far have we come?
I just came across a really refreshing blog by Alexander van Elsas on new media and technologies and their effect on social behavior. He has a ton of really insightful posts, including a recent post where he states some great points on why "the conversation" needs to be kept open and free. In fact, van Elsas asks - Can we have more fragmentation, please! While some argue that "comment fragmentation" is hurting the the ability to keep a coherent conversation alive, van Elsas and others point out that the true essence of conversation cannot be restricted by time, place or community. It's open and once published should have a life of its own.
The fundamental argument over comment fragmentation needs to go back to the original concepts of social media and how "creating conversation" was key. Where it starts to get tricky though, is how do publishers keep the conversation going "attached" to the originator who started the thread. This can be a big issue for "brands" trying to use blogs and social networks to connect with their customers and create conversation in new ways a la Social Media Marketing and PR 2.0.
van Elsas writes:
"While the idea of being able to track and follow a conversation that you might have started sounds good, I personally believe that centralising discussion is not a good thing. Conversations are by definition not bounded by time or space. They happen here and there, now and then. It is an illusion to think we can centralize discussions...
Social media technology and services have ensured that the conversation can take place anywhere. That’s the power of social media. It isn’t about media, content or distribution. It is about being able to interact anywhere we want.
It helps us to move away from destinations. It helps the user and the conversation to be set free. It enables what I call the user centric web. The web where the user, and not the destination is important."
It may be a hard pill to swallow, but any time any one tries to "control" a conversation, it is always doomed to fail. I think van Elsas point on the large scale really show that as we talk about "creating conversation," we also have to be ready for it to change, spread, disconnect and take a life of its own.
At that point, the publisher, then has the opportunity (and perhaps) obligation if wanting to stay connected to the conversation to particpate and co-contribute to the conversations lifespan thereafter.
Related Posts:
Related Tools & Services:
BtoB Magazine reveals the emergence of “chief blogger” as a corporate job title and the mixed feelings about CEO blogs.
Read the article: Businesses embrace blogging :: BtoB Magazine.
This is a video filmed from a 2003 TED Conference, but as I was doing research today, I wanted to bring this back up to the surface as a good reminder of the core principles of how to effectively reach and connect with people/consumers today.
In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to ignore the ordinary stuff. Marketing guru Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. And early adopters, not the mainstream's bell curve, are the new sweet spot of the market.
There is a great article published in Adweek, "These Brands Build Community - How these Web 2.0 companies build good relationships to build their brands," that clearly and succinctly sums up what innovative (and successful) companies are doing, like Zappos, Threadless, Etsy, Craigslist and Yelp.
The key, the article clearly points to, is that these companies are "quietly building brands online on the strength of communities." While I would say there is nothing "quiet" about @Zappos interactive dialogue and "Tweet Evangelism" on Twitter or the "voice" of user-generated slogans and design and community ratings submitted for the latest and greatest Threadless T's slogans or the "raving fan base" of Etsy's marketplace, the article has a quote that is so worth stating over and over again...
"Community is not a tactic or marketing plan line item, but core to what [successful Web 2.0 brands] do. It means being hyper-responsive to customers, laser focused on usability, unapologetically human and OK with customers determining the course their businesses should take. The bonus: When they take off, these brands don't need to do much in the way of advertising, instead letting their customers spread the word."
This cannot be expressed enough in every aspect of your interactive/marketing plan. Community is so core to successful engagement today that it has got to be where your message becomes dialogue, your consumers become relationships and those relationships become inter-personal.
In an April report by eMarketer, User-Generated Content: In Pursuit of Ad Dollars, U.S. Internet users are creating content in record numbers, and millions of other users are reading and looking at it. eMarketer studies this surge in user-generated content creation and provides answers to key questions:
The report also aggregates some interesting statistics on content creators and content consumers over the the next five years.
Twitter is still a big question mark in a lot of people's minds. How do I engage? Where do I jump in? How will it benefit me and my interests? Will anybody be interested? Why would I use this? What are the benefits? How do I measure its value?
Well, if you spend a couple minutes on Twistori, I think you'll begin to see very clearly what the voice of Twitter is capable of. I'll leave this post to Twistori to tell the Twitter story from here...
Sprint Gets Customer Approval
Apple Gets User Feedback
Zappos Makes a Brand Connection
Tweetscan Learns Users Have an Emotional Connection to Service
Twitter Gets Validated
Benny & Jerry's Free Ice Cream Cone Day Goes Viral
Twistori is...
is the first step in an ongoing social experiment, based on Twitter. inspired by wefeelfine and drawing data from summize, hand-crafted by amy hoy and thomas fuchs.
Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Gottfried Vossen: Unleashing Web 2.0: From Concepts to Creativity
Robert Brunner: Do You Matter?: How Great Design Will Make People Love Your Company
Bryan Eisenberg: Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer
Albert-Laszlo Barabasi: Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means
Duncan J. Watts: Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age (Open Market Edition)
Mark Buchanan: Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks
