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My colleague mentioned to me this particular presentation which was very well-received at SXSW this year. I wish I was there to actually hear the presentation but trolling the interwebs – I was able to find some supporting learnings that better explain this talk. This comes extensively from notes taken by Julie at Facebook:
*Everything below is paraphrased or taken directly from Julie – does not include my thoughts or ideas*
- We are designers are very attuned to bad experiences.”
- Designers are designing for themselves – but the philosophy falls flat for the new user experience because we’re only a new user once. Esp. true for social networks because we can’t go back and feel what it’s like to discover and become friends with a new group of people for the first time.
- Ask for registration after users have done something worth saving – after they have invested time in your site. Another strategy is to prove that what’s over the registration wall is worth registering for. (Gowalla does it well)
- Design a roadmap around an ah-ha moment. Let people continue with the new user flow even if they haven’t confirmed their email yet so they can get to the ahha moment sooner.
- Eliminate everything before the ah-ha oment.
- The feedback cycle for getting a user from new user to very engaged and active user is important but a lot of this hearkens from game design – (eg. spore. mint.com, bejewelled.com) At Facebook, the high level feedback is around sharing.
- User education is an experience – not something they have to read out of a textbook. (eg. glitch.com, yammer, games)
- Games teach you controls as part of the gameplay – go left, right try. “In Super Mario Galaxy, the first task is to jump over the bunnies, which is fun. You don’t even realize you’re being taught because you are so immersed in it.”
- Tumblr is great example as well.
Key TAKEAWAYS:
- see your new user experience with fresh eyes–watch new user tests.
- get newcomers invested right away into your product
- discover your ‘aha moment’ and get to it quickly
- Set small goals that expand into larger ones.
Umair Haque’s controversial post has caused quite a stir in the community. Bud Caddell’s response mirrors my thoughts and brilliantly articulates the flaws in Umair’s argument. I wanted to share a few thoughts of my own to add to this debate.
It’s largely home to weak, artificial connections, what I call thin relationships. Today social media is trading in low-quality conncetions – linkages that are unlikely to yield meaningful, lasting relationships.
Umair assets that thin connections offer no value and I have an issue with that. His statement assumes that people are not smart, in that they let crowd their lives (and social networks) with meaningless relationships that add no value to them. I look at it differently. For one, and this is mostly a nod to Bud’s point, social media isn’t meant to help you create new relationships – but to help strengthen existing ones. Frequent interactions whether they are by sharing information, inconsequential tweets or debates, help cement an existing relationship and give it a foundation.
Regarding thin relationships, Haque assumes that they don’t already exist in our “offline” lives. Neighbors, car-pool groups, the yoga group, parents of your kid’s friends – these are all thin relationships. And they do add value to your life – even if the only value they add is convenience. Social media has helped accelerate the quantity of thin relationships we can now create – AND it has created new kinds of value we can extract from these relationships.
I frankly also believe that as a culture we are past the point where an “online” relationship doesn’t constitute a “real” relationship. I look at an online friend, acquaintance or person as somebody I have simply not met in-person yet. Social media tools and technologies have afforded us the ability to get a proper picture of an “online” person’s personality, likes, dislikes and thought processes. We aren’t in the 1990’s where an “online” person was just a username in an IRC chatroom. As such, our definition of the word “relationship” has evolved. Perhaps it hasn’t been verbalized yet.
The “relationships” at the heart of the social bubble aren’t real because they’re not marked by mutual investment .
Social media is an investment that works for multiple relationships. The design of the technology allows your investment in it to affect and reach more than one person at any given time. That said, naturally, if you develop an affinity towards someone thinking, you are bound to communicate more often with them and as such “invest” more time into the relationship. What Haque misses here is that the relationships in social media begin by mutual interest and have the flexibility to grow together or apart into various branches.
In response to Haque’s point about social media’s inability to replace traditional gatekeepers – I think that Social media is not meant to replace or dis-intermediate any gatekeepers but complement their efforts.
People invest in low-quality content. Farmville ain’t exactly Casablanca. Third, and most damaging, is the ongoing weakening of the Internet as a force for good. Not only is Farmville not Casablanca, it’s not Kiva either. One of the seminal examples of the promise of social media, Kiva allocates micro-credit more meaningfully. By contrast, Farmville is largely socially useless. It doesn’t make kids tangibly better off; it just makes advertisers better off.
Calling games like Farmville socially useless, is the biggest and most profound logically flaw in his argument. What differentiates useful from the useless? Because kiva.org is impacting change and Farmville is largely creating entertainment – is that the basis for dismissing the value games like farmville add to the social and cultural environments we thrive in?
If that’s the underlying principle for Haque’s argument, he is essentially implying that entertaining pursuits that don’t make us better off, are useless. And that’s bullshit. We are multi-dimensional people, with multi-dimensional skills, interests, hobbies and desires. If I can donate $50 to Kiva.org, I am also capable of engaging with farmville for two hours. And no other platform reflects this better than social media.
As a society needs a balance of do-gooders, entertainers, bankers, artists and critics to flourish and grow, the evolution of social media and social technologies will only happen with a balance of similar pursuits. For every kiva.org, we need a farmville. At the end of the day, it’s not just about how we are impacting change, but also about how are we constantly challenging the status-quo and enriching our critical thought processes, that creates value and elevates the society as a whole.
Social media, the buzz, the conversations are not in a bubble. They are happening all around us – in our physical world. They are shaping and re-shaping our offline cultures constantly and with that, it is constantly challenging how we look at the world. We are all re-evaluating our opinions and ideas with an acceleration that wasn’t really around before.
Social media is a bubble, because we call it so. We (digital strategists, social media “gurus,” adagency and creative types) live in our own bubble only listening to, responding to and exposing ourselves to each other’s thoughts and ideas. The minute you step out of it and surround yourself with a different set of people, a different set of voices – you’ll notice that social media is not really a bubble anymore.
Just my two cents. Would love to hear what you think.
I have a new perspective on my job and what I do: I’m a problem-solver and thanks to a strong team and a terrific boss who never shies from giving me feedback, I’m a good problem-solver. The thrill of working on the agency side is you never know what type of challenge will come your way. Every once in a while, I like to look back and take stock of things I’ve learned and become good at and new weaknesses I’ve identified in myself. Perhaps because it is spring and the weather is getting warmer, I’m in more introspective mood… or perhaps it’s because I’m at a roadblock regarding a current challenge I’m working on! But I wanted to capture these thoughts before losing them.
1. I’ve noticed I’ve become better and I continue to become better at presenting my case, argument and disagreements. It sounds so peculiar. But as responsibilities increase and my work touches more people, I have had to sometimes fight harder to protect it or to simply make sure its message doesn’t get diluted. And I suppose after trying every sort of communication skill, I’ve come to realize that data is the best way to win my case. It’s not about I like or I think. It’s about, this will work for three reasons, 1) 2) 3)
2. I’ve also become very good at identifying the problem and framing the right question. Client assignments are sometimes, very specific but most times they are very broad. The onus then is on us to put smart and intelligent thinking to the issue at hand and before even crafting a solution, frame the right question.
3. Constraints make my work better. Budget constraint? Speed-to-market? Timing? Resources? Tight boundaries around a project result into a smarter output.
4. Tell a story. Tell a story. Tell a story!! Solutions to a problem don’t mean anything when they are not framed in the right manner. And after 5 years of creating decks and presenting “solutions,” the most effective way to present it is in form of a story.
5. Visuals make an idea or a solution ten thousand times more effective. I am not a designer, but I’ve learned how to become resourceful. Powerpoint and a MAC are my best friends.
6. My most successful meetings happen when everyone in the group know exactly what is to be achieved out of the meeting. I am not an expert yet – but am getting better everyday at running very effective meetings. Also, something I learned from Behance (make things happen!) and I put to use everyday is: action steps. Once the meeting is drawing to a close, I make it a point to recap the responsibilities and duties assigned and make sure everyone is on the same page about next steps before leaving the meeting.
7. Details matter. I’ve learned this from my boss. He must have been a journalist or a teacher in his previous life. He’s a stickler when it comes to grammar, typos, alignments and using the “right” word to convey an idea. It a very frustrating process to go through a deck with him and have him point out numerous seemingly minor mistakes in wordings everytime. But I’m glad I’ve taken them to heart – because the resulting end product is impeccable. Brilliant. Stellar. When I am managing my own teams, I know I’m going to demand perfection of the details.
8. My personality is such that I get bored easily. The ebb and flow of work life means that you aren’t always working on the funnest or the most interesting problems. To deal with this, I’ve resorted to teaching myself new skills. Here’s what I mean by this – taking a class or reading a book about design is not going to make me a designer. But it’s going to give me a different perspective on problem-solving. It’s giving me a new lens to approach a problem and that excites me. My current obsession is with web usability and user experience. Why are certain things the way they are on the Internet?
I am indulging my obsession and I’m realizing that I’d be good at developing digital products and experiences. Not the best – but better than I am now. And as long as I’m learning – even if what I’m learning is just a new way to think, I’M LOVING MY JOB!
9. The most important skills I have learned however is to believe in myself. And to not lose conviction. I’ve learned to be assertive in situations that required me to step up to the game and demand due credit or attention. Being assertive has actually made me respect myself more and made me enjoy my job more and I cannot thank my boss and my work environment enough for helping me indirectly develop this skill.
I suppose neither of this is rocket science. If I’d taken notes of everything I’d learned from business books, I’m sure these five things would top the list. But I’ve learned these things by doing and making mistakes and I think they are now indelibly imprinted in my head.
I’m sure there are other areas I need to get better at and constantly improve. One of them is to better manage a client. I’m getting there… but would love to hear some feedback. What are some of things you have learned and what are some things you are hoping to get better at ?
  I made a very interesting discovery last night.
My MoleSkine ran out of pages and I desperately needed a new one. So I walked to Strand. (FYI – They always have a terrific collection of Moleskine’s for atleast $3-$4 less than traditional venues)
I’m pretty loyal to the black hard-covered ruled notebook. It retailed at Strand for $14. As I was buying it, I noticed a fatter, thicker version of a ruled notebook and I picked it up to discover it wasn’t a notebook but a 2010 Daily Planner. And it was on sale at Strand for $7.95!!
I quickly scanned through a open copy of the Planer and noticed that it was just like the regular notebook! (Only with dates and times on every single page – but who cares?!)I’m only concerned with writing and anyways my Moleskine, by the time I finish it, is barely recognizable. I liked the idea of having more pages to write and doodle on.
For $8, I not only ended up getting twice the amount of pages, but also a cool little telephone booklet and all these fancy features like a calendar, travel planning page and such.
So yea – a little known secret of the publishing industry. Yearly Daily Planners become quite worthless after December and come January, you’ll find most of these in sale racks. The logic is that most people do their planner/ calendar shopping before the new year begins and they don’t quite enjoy the idea of starting a new planner a few months into the new year.
Works for me though  And if your concern is the pages and the writing, it should work for you too.
My talk about Social Media for Small Business Owners along with Morgan Johnston of Jet Blue was a huge success. I went in wondering if I needed to down a few shots of vodka before giving my talk, but turned out that I had a very attentive audience who was hungry to learn! And how!
Like I mentioned earlier, I wanted to focus on talk on giving SBO’s a framework to think about their social media strategies. I still think that was the right approach. The crowd was a mix of SBO’s at all levels – there were folks who had no idea what Twitter or a Fan Page was and folks who were still wondering how to use Linkedin.com to grow their business. While I found most of the attendees very warm and eager to learn, it was a little disheartening when a few still referred to social media as a quick solution to “send more traffic” to their site. You can’t lose weight without working out- how can you then gain the benefits social media offers without putting the time and effort into it?!
Anyways, here is the final presentation that I shared with the SBOs:
NYT has an amazing article today about the relationship between Internet and TV but mostly about how instead of cannibalizing the TV, Internet is actually bringing life back into the TV.
One of the main reasons this is happening is because of the “Second Screen.” We talk a lot at work about the second screen – which in essence is the idea that viewers increasingly watch TV while engaging in other activities either online or on mobile. Facebook and Twitter are allowing users to engage in chatter while watching television. And that in itself is extremely powerful.By becoming a part of the story, the audiences are effectively moving the story forward.
This year, NBC decided to show the Golden Globes live on both coasts for the very first time. And they want to repeat it with the Emmy Awards to enable viewers on both coasts to watch and (chat online) simultaneously.
This isn’t it, according to the article,
The Vancouver Olympics are shaping up to be the most-watched foreign Winter Games since 1994. This year’s Super Bowl was the most-watched program in United States history, beating out the final episode of “M*A*S*H” in 1983.
Amen to that, I say.
I’ve read about ChatRoutlette.com a lot and even spent a few awkward moments on the site. I think a Twitter friend summed it best when he described the site as the online red light district.
The experience on Chatroulette.com is eerily similar to the ICQ.com days – where you’d enter a room, vet each other out virtually and maybe share a few meaningful lines of conversation. Atleast on ICQ.com, you could hide behind a cloak of anonymity.
I’ve kept clicking next and the weirdest assortment of strangers from all over the world whizzed one after another on my screen. A creepy bald, old man, an excited college kid from Holland, a girl with her underwear in focus, and the list goes on. I shared perhaps five lines with a kid before clicking next.
Its remarkable that a young kid in Russia created this site – unsure of how it would be used and how people will react to it. And even though I’m not seventeen, there’s a part of me that is entirely fascinated by this site and the idea of meeting strangers on it. danah boyd expresses it better than me when she says,
I used to love the randomness of the Internet. I can’t tell you how formative it was for me to grow up talking to all sorts of random people online. So I feel pretty depressed every time I watch people flip out about the dangers of talking to strangers. Strangers helped me become who I was. Strangers taught me about a different world than what I knew in my small town. Strangers allowed me to see from a different perspective. Strangers introduced me to academia, gender theory, Ivy League colleges, the politics of war, etc. So I hate how we vilify all strangers as inherently bad. Did I meet some sketchballs on the Internet when I was a teen? DEFINITELY. They were weird; I moved on.
I’m not sure that immature folks of any age (or the easily grossed out) should be on this site. But I do hope that we can create a space where teens and young adults and the rest of us can actually interact with randomness again. There’s a cost to our social isolation and I fear that we’re going to be paying it for generations to come.
Personally, the Internet hasn’t taken away any randomness from my life. The only difference is that this randomness how has a context to it, whether its the six degrees of separation or knowing enough about a person from simply googling them. It is still an act of measured serendipity to come across strangers who actually are not.
Also, I don’t think ChatRoulette has evolved into the kind of platform that can sustain anything more than a brief curiosity yet. And that is OK with me. I do agree with boyd that all strangers are not inherently bad, however, it this Internet age, it might be handy to have an internal radar that urges you to click “next,” when something is just not right.
I think I may play around a little bit more with ChatRoulette. I want to try it with a bunch of friends on the screen to see the experience that gives me. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts about CR as well.
Update: This introduction to ChatRoulette by Sarita Yardi is a very good read. Highly recommend it.
.. an idea just hit us out of nowhere, leaving really no other choice than to run after it. I was the proponent of “it’s not the idea, the execution that counts.” And it’s funny how easy it was to say that when I wasn’t the one with the idea. I suppose an idea is like a baby, anyone who has one alone can see the potential and the possibilities it beholds. After 24 hours of idea paralysis, I’m now pulling myself together to begin some actual legwork on the idea. Who knows where it will lead? But all I know right now, is that I’ve gotta go deep with it.
At work, we’ve been working on a fun project about work-life balance and managing productivity. It’s quite ironic to be overwhelmed with content and information about work-life balance and maintaining a zen state with the chaos in my mind and head. However, I did learn something interesting about achieving goals. Some people (read: my husband) is the kind who keeps his goals to himself. He is secretive to a point of being obsessive. And then there’s people like me: who talk to a few people so I can hold myself accountable for it. It’s like the time I wanted to go to Italy, I told as many people as possible. And then I worked my butt off to get into the program or else, I’d have lost my face infront of all these people!
We humans are such complex and weird creatures.
I’m giving a talk next week at Asian Women in Business about Social media for small business owners. Over the last few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about what my point-of-view is regarding social media for SBO’s. I don’t for a minute doubt the value social media provides any business. However, I want to be cognizant of the fact that social media, like any other business channel, requires immense time, resources and investment for limited tangible results. And I wonder if that is a hard sell for a SBO.
I’ve been interviewing and speaking with SBO’s since the last few days and am hearing mixed opinions. Most SBO’s see immediate value in social media but the results don’t often match up to their expectations. And mostly that comes from a case of misguided expectations.
There is a LOT of information on the Internet for SBO’s interested in using social media. But just sifting through it and reading about it can be overwhelming and cause action – paralysis. I don’t want my presentation to be just another talk crowding the web. While there is no one-size fits all approach when it comes to social media, I do want to provide my audiences with a strategic framework to think about social media.
I just wanted to jot down some thoughts here before I begin framing them into a presentation. I’d love feedback and ideas on making this better.
1. What you don’t know about social media: Social media is old news. This talk is not a SM 101/ but lets start with a reality check. Yes, we’ve heard the astounding numbers. 350 Mil+ users on Facebook. 50M on Twitter. etc etc. But what you might not know is this – only 5% of people on Twitter create 75% of the conversations on it. 85% of iphone users use only between 2-4 applications. (So hold your horses before you invest 50% of your marketing budget into a new application)
Bottomline: Share of attention is difficult to achieve UNLESS there is a compelling value proposition.
2. Lets talk about you. Have a clear understanding of your business goals and then think about how social media platforms can help you achieve them. You are not Dell. You are not Zappos. What are YOU trying to achieve from social media? Entertainment networks use social media to drive tune-in and awareness; Magazines use social media to increase readership and build audiences; the korean BBQ Truck uses Twitter to drive foot-traffic and inform its fans of the truck’s locations. And other retail brands use facebook and Foursquare to drive sales and promotions. What is your business goal and is it something that social media can help you achieve it?
What are then some of the goals that SM can help you achieve? From a sales POV – social media can give you a terrific understanding of your customers; help you build thought leadership in you area of business/ expertise and help occupy mindshare. Social media also offers a more direct advantage in terms of driving promotions, foot traffic, sales and positive reviews. (Think yelp.com twitter.com and foursquare.com) The usual arc into success in social media is 1) build audiences 2) to drive awareness and 3) ultimately inspire action.
3. Understand your audience. This is important. Once you have your goals clearly outlined, think about your audiences and where they enjoy spending time on the Interwebs. Are they talking about you or your competitors somewhere? Are they they just a handful or are they in droves?
4. Prioritize your investment. What’s right for your business? Each platform helps you achieve specific objectives. Linked in with business networking, Twitter with customer service, relationship building, Facebook with fan engagement.
5. Rules of Execution.
No overnight results: The amount of time you invest in social media is directly proportional to the results you can expect from social media: Setting up a Facebook page of Twitter profile isn’t enough.
Not about the numbers: Not yet anyways. Focus on the quality of your interactions not the quantity. An entertainment client of ours has 30K less followers on Twitter than its competitor. In spite of this, our client tweets are just as re-tweeted (slightly more often, in fact) as the competitor tweets.
Measure. Optimize. Adapt. The beauty of social media is real-time results. Twitter is still far limited in providing results – but Facebook gives you the opportunity to track progress, see what’s working and what’s not and make changes in real time.
This is a work in progress. But any thoughtful comments and constructive criticism will be super helpful.
Note: Older article from contentdecoded.com reposted here.
 A few weeks ago we applauded Burberry with its brilliant foray into social media and branded content with Art of the Trench. Today we chanced upon Gucci’s effort at being “social” and have to relate our extreme disappointment with the end result. Burberry did set the bar very high.
Gucci Eye Web is an ode to its line of sunglasses. (atleast we think it is) but it comes off as a poorly executed idea without any substance to it.
When you enter the site, it asks you to pick a city to explore the nightlife. Upon picking New York, you end up on a flash-heavy page with cliched music and a picture of rotating sunglasses at the center of the page. The sunglasses alternatively feature images of random people – I was hard pressed to understand how those people are connected to the Gucci brand. The site is also confusing: is it about nightlife ? Or about Gucci sunglasses? If it is indeed about Gucci Eyewear, why isn’t everyone in the “crowd-sourced” photographs wearing Gucci sunglasses?
Here are three reasons we think this Branded Content initiative by Gucci is epic fail.
- No solid positioning: There is no About page on the site or anything that gives the reader an idea of the purpose, mission or point of the site. Additionally, the directions are misleading. The three-stepped guide at the corner of the page tells the readers they can explore nightlife in particular city with no information about the city or nightlife! Was the idea to explore nightlife via the user-submitted photographs? But even then, how are zoomed in photographs of random people a way to explore nightlife? I can’t tell the difference between the photos from New York or Barcelona. They all look the same.
- No connectivity: The idea of “connect” on the Gucci EyeWeb is translated as share us with your friends. Gucci’s idea of experimenting with social media is cherry picking the themes they want to explore (let’s do crowdsourcing!) and then add social sharing buttons. This isn’t even Web 1.0.
- Exclusive does not mean brochures: The site offers users the ability to download exclusive content. Gucci’s version of exclusive content is a brochure with the product information about Gucci sunglasses and a link to the main site. A fashion blog offers more exclusive content than that. We are passionate about content and masking brochures and “saley” content as exclusive is not only in poor taste, but undermines the intelligence of the Gucci customer and brand enthusiast.
This criticism is grounded in the belief that while we commend brands for taking that proverbial step forward with social media, we hold them accountable for their sloppy execution. Had Gucci put a little more thought into this project, it would have been a different story altogether. For a luxury brand such as Gucci, allowing users to interpret the brand with their images is a commendable step towards embracing their fans and opening up the brand. And Gucci certainly gets points for that. But as a luxury brand, Gucci (and any other) is about exclusivity, integrity, heritage and class. While it may seem that most of social media themes (crowdsourcing, massclusivity, transparency, casual-ness etc.) are diametrically opposite of what luxury brands stand for, the real challenge for luxury brands is going to be to figure out how to interpret these social media themes in the context of their own brand.
The Art of Trench coat is a lesson in sartorial eleg ance and how it translates on the web. Visual poetry! In addition to accepting user photos (wearing the Burberry trench), Burberry has commissioned a handful of famous photogs including The Sartorialist, to add to this photo essay of sorts and celebrate the trench coat. This is one of the better branded content efforts I’ve seen in a long time. Hats off to Burberry.
Burberry’s Art of the Trench has it’s own flaws – for example, how does the site plan on ensuring repeat visits? But the reason Gucci and other luxury brands need to be a little careful with social media-branded content executions is that for every Gucci, there will be a Burberry. – a competing brand that will have executed an idea just a little better. And that has tremendous intangible benefits in social media.
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Hi, I'm Jinal. I like to write about Internet, marketing and culture. I work at Electric Artists. I'm enchanted with the intersection of art, storytelling and social media and have created and participated in quite a few such projects. I also co-founded Dsplaced.
I also travel quite a bit.
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