lead/marke | ralf schwartz

Afraid of the Web? Get a Glimpse of what 3D printing will do to your world!

"MAKIES is an action doll creator: a player/customer can design their own action doll – features, hair, clothes and everything – & we then 3D print it uniquely to them, build & dress it, and send on to them within 3 weeks of ordering."

Via Makie.

And, please, do not even think about everybody having their own 3D printer at home! This will become your worst nightmare - just after the web ...

Dan Wieden on Advertising [video]

 
Via Neil Perkin.

Steve Jobs: "Products, not the Profits"

"[T]he products, not the profits, were the motivation. ... It's a subtle difference, but it ends up meaning everything." - Steve Jobs

Via.

@TheThirdClub - or: To All the Brave Entrepreneurial Wo/Men: Creativity & Innovation Desperately Need You!

(Note: This is a cross post with my distinctive leadership blog)

We just founded The Third Club!
Get to know more about it here (ya, it's German).

(Polaroid by Douglas Wilson > available here) 

At the moment we are 12 brave wo/men - but want to allure all brave wo/men out there! Just to give you a very small hint on what we are talking about please inhale the following list.

(Yeah, I know, some 20.000+ great people are not on that list.
But you do know: there is no definitive list of great people.)

This is not about names. The personalities beyond them will give you a pretty good picture what I am talking about. They are the wild-card characters of entrepreneurial personalities and spirit, of motivation, engagement, and dedication I would love to see @TheThirdClub:

[L/M NET] Helge Tenno > The Game Changer: Presence & Proof

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

What we have done up till now is limit our thinking of what online can do based on a narrow view of what marketing can do. But what happens when marketing changes?

Traditional advertising and design has one goal: to deliver a promise, either based on what the consumer wants to become, or what the brand wants to become. All traditional marketing, advertising and design is built around this core idea: the transmission of an idea from a sender to a receiver. Inside this mindset digital offers some abilities that are new, and speeds up some abilities that are old. But in essence digital is nothing more than a technological option – a choice between newspaper, billboard, TV, radio or internet ++.

Is 'Influencing the Subconscious Mind' still Good Brand Engagement?

If I do read Martin's post I really feel cheated on. It feels like Whole Foods has crossed the line here. What do you think? Is that still good Brand Engagement? Don't all cross the line? Is marketing everywhere cheating on customers and clients?

A difficult question, or?

"Flowers, as everyone knows, are among the freshest, most perishable objects on earth.

Which is why fresh flowers are placed right up front - to "prime" us to think of freshness the moment we enter the store.

Consider the opposite - what if we entered the store and were greeted with stacks of canned tuna and plastic flowers?

Having been primed at the outset, we continue to carry that association, albeit subconsciously, with us as we shop.

The prices for the flowers, as for all the fresh fruits and vegetables, are scrawled in chalk on fragments of black slate - a tradition of outdoor European marketplaces.

It's as if the farmer pulled up in front of Whole Foods just this morning, unloaded his produce, then hopped back in his flatbed truck to drive back upstate to his country farm.

The dashed-off scrawl also suggests the price changes daily, just as it might at a roadside farm stand or local market.

But in fact, most of the produce was flown in days ago, its price set at the Whole Foods corporate headquarters in Texas.

Not only do the prices stay fixed, but what might look like chalk on the board is actually indelible; the signs have been mass-produced in a factory."

Read more at Martin Lindstrom's great post from fastcompany: How Whole Foods "Primes" You To Shop.

The web essentially is a ... [Quote]

“The web essentially is a planetary-scale nervous system where individual minds take on the role of synapses, firing electrical pattern-signals to one another at light speed - the net effect being an astonishing increase in creative output.

Jason Silva, Venezuelan-American television personality, filmmaker, gonzo journalist and founding producer/host for Current TV, Connecting All The Dots, Dec 10, 2010"

Via amiquote.

Lead for Your Weekend and Every Given Business Day: Go Play!

Via kentson.

PLAY! - like in distinctive leadership's PLAY!
PLAY! - like in lead/marke's PLUG! PLAY! WIN-WIN!:

[L/M NET] Tom Fishburne > "advertising with QR codes"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:

Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

Some marketers are calling 2011 “The Year of the QR Code”, predicting that mobile tagging will become mainstream. Those little black and white tags are popping up everywhere: in billboards, magazine ads, and even tombstones.

Thinking Outside the Facebook-Box!

More than ever you will have to start thinking outside the box - outside the facebook box that is! Facebook is a trap.

Via thisisnthappiness.

More than ever you might learn now - by observing what happens within Google Plus - how vulnerable social networks are. The more vulnerable the more closed they are.

Graeme Lipschitz: A Few Short Ideas on Google+ to Get its Scope

To start early with G+ (and brief your agency accordingly so they do not oversleep like they did with facebook) you should get at least a slight idea of its potential:

- Google Plus and Docs = collaborative publishing on the fly.
- Google Plus and Youtube = exponential video sharing.
- Google Plus and Latitude = Foursquare killer.
- Google Plus and Translate = a true social media Babel fish.
- Google Plus and Sites = Facebook Fan page killer.
- Google Plus and Adwords = a viable, trackable and ROI effective monetisation model for social media.

Read it all at Google+ is the golden ticket to the chocolate factory of social media. Via Nico.

Clients from Hell: How Would You Like Your Graphic Design?

Via clientsfromhell.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > What’s Your Skype?

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

In his latest book Macrowikinomics, Don Tapscott (along with Anthony Williams) argues that there are two types of business models in existence today: those that have been disrupted by the internet, and those that are waiting to be disrupted by the internet (summarised in an article from the Wall Street Journal).

I’m not 100% convinced that this is true, but I think that there is great value in acting as though it is.

Here’s an example – take a look at this graph (from TeleGeography):

It shows the annual growth in minutes of international phone calls made over regular phone lines, versus those made on Skype.

Skype was founded in 2003, and almost instantly it was heralded as the death of long distance. It hasn’t been yet (although it has been in my household). However, the graph shows that it took close to eight years for Skype to really start biting into the market share of the traditional telcos.

Like I’ve said before, it takes a lot longer for a new idea to spread than we expect. What happens while this delayed diffusion takes place?

First, there are a lot of inflated claims made about the impact of the new idea. Then it takes longer to diffuse than expected, and everyone that should be worried about it is able to decide that it isn’t a threat after all. Eventually, the new idea either dies out (think Friendfeed), or takes off (think Skype) – but usually much later than expected. When these new ideas do take off, they often seem to take by surprise those operating business models that are disrupted by these ideas.

That’s why I think that it is very important for you to think about your business model, and ask: What’s my Skype?

Thinking about this question now will give you a few advantages:

• Planning for disruption means it won’t take you by surprise when it arrives: by giving some thought to what might disrupt your current business model, it gives you some time to react to these threats.
• Even if you don’t pick the exact idea that disrupts your business model, it’s good practice to think about what could do so: you might not be able to pick the exact idea that will disrupt your current business model. However, giving some thought to what could will help you be flexible in planning for change, and for thinking about scenarios that will help you cope with this change.
• Building this flexible thinking will help you maintain a balanced innovation portfolio: to be successful over the long term, you need to divide your innovation efforts across both ideas that will make you better at what you’re currently doing, and ideas that will disrupt whatever you’re currently doing. You don’t need to invest equal amounts into both types of innovation, but you need to be thinking about both.

Your Skype may not be out there yet. If not, great – you can work on inventing it yourself. If so, thinking about it now, and thinking about how you can respond to the changes it will instigate can be extremely valuable.

 

(ralf says:
If you do not 'believe', what Tim is telling us, please read this more personal story about Skype and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer: Dear Bill, Let Steve Ballmer Pay Skype's $8.5 billion from his Private Assets!

Now rethink the above ;)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

[L/M NET] Tom Fishburne > "marketing fairy dust"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

There is no marketing fairy dust. Yet. However, we marketers often get excited about the marketing fad du jour.

Kathy Sierra wrote a wonderful post recently called, “Pixie Dust and the Mountain of Mediocrity“. It includes these insights:

“We’re always searching for that secret formula, that magic pixie dust to sprinkle over our products, services, books, causes, brands, blogs to bring them to life and make them Super Successful … why are so many so convinced that [insert favorite buzzword] is the answer vs. just making a product that helps people kick ass in a way they find meaningful?”

Marketing is too often seen as something that happens at the perimeter of a business. Once everything is defined, marketing steps in to magically drive consumers to take products from the shelf. Even if the product experience is undifferentiated and unremarkable.

The most important marketing is indirect and long-term. It’s the hardest to measure, but the most meaningful when done well. This is the marketing that is baked into the entire organization. This is the marketing that makes meaningfully unique products and engaging consumer interactions.

The best marketing breaks the marketing silo. We all work in marketing, no matter what our functional expertise may be. We all impact our products and services and touch consumers in some way or another.

There’s no room to stand on the sidelines with eyes closed. What it takes to make our businesses fly isn’t fairy dust. It’s meaningful involvement from everyone.

(Marketoonist Monday: I’m giving away a signed print of this week’s cartoon. Just share an insightful comment to this week’s post. I’ll pick one comment at 5:00 PST on Monday. Thanks!)

 

(ralf says:
Even more strange: marketing has been reduced to advertising for years now. Because everything else has been taken away by fellow departments in search of excellence, additional responsibilities, bonus opportunities, you know what I mean.

Everybody thought s/he could do marketing, ie. market the thing lying there on the table before them.

1991, in a strategy meeting I attended even before I officially started at GlaxoSmithKline, the marketing director explained that marketing and communication starts as soon as we talk to people outside BEFORE we start to develop the potential product. BEFORE WE EVEN KNEW what the potential product would be!
Everything we did was marketing or - in other words - marketing was the only thing we ever did. Talk to people, listen, create, innovate, deliver.

No marketing fairy dust, but plain business innovation and brand engagement - as I call it today.)

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. Twitter: @tomfishburne

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Kaiser Chiefs and New Business Models for Music"

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

 

I just finished listening to my version of the new album by Kaiser Chiefs, The Future is Medieval, and I have to say that I’m pretty happy with it.

You may well ask what makes it my version?

The thing that makes it mine is that I picked the 10 songs to go on it, I picked the order they’d go in, and I made the artwork. And I guess I’m promoting it now too, even though what I’m really interested in is the business model.

Here is how Mike Masnick describes the idea:

…there are two key things that the band is doing with this digital (and it’s only digital) release:

• Let fans create a “custom” album with custom artwork. The band is effectively releasing 20 songs, and users get to pick which 10 they want, and put them in any order they want — and then they get a custom piece of album artwork, based on the choices. The website is fun to play around with as well.
• Then, once you’ve bought the album, you also get a “fan page” for the unique album that you created, and if you drive others to that page and they buy the copy of the album that you created, you get £1 (the full album costs £7.50).

There are some other little features as well, but those are the two big ones. It’s definitely an interesting idea, and I’ll be curious to see how it goes.

I’m pretty curious to see how it will work too. Masnick has some reservations about the choices that they’ve made – but it illustrates an important point. When you face a turbulent environment, as record labels certainly do at the moment, then you have to experiment with new business models to find out what works.

This is an interesting experiment.

Here is what singer Ricky Wilson had to say about it in an email to The Lefsetz Letter:

We’re quite excited about this. Why not make an album yourself? We wanted to reward the fans for being our fans and thought this could be nice.

We just sold all our tickets for our first two gigs exclusively on our facebook page, which worked a treat and we’re going to be getting fans to use Facebook polls to help us pick set-lists and stuff. God knows if it’ll work.

We’ve used a load of our own money to hire some really clever people to build the site and market it so we’re hopeful.

This definitely isn’t some sort of two-fingers-to-the-system thing. In fact our label Fiction have been very supportive.

It’s not supposed to be a massive statement to the world or a fight against anything. It was just fun and we needed that to be honest.

So what’s different from a business model standpoint? A few things.

By getting people involved it changes the value proposition pretty significantly. If you take an hour to put together your own version of the CD, then you’re likely to feel pretty invested in it. In my case, that worked pretty well because even though I love and have bought a couple of Kaiser Chiefs songs, this is the first full CD of theirs that I’ve ever gotten. Marion Gibbon has a good analysis of some of the issues here as well.

The value network is different too, with fans promoting the record (although here is a critique from Dan Catt of that part of the scheme who suggests that this isn’t necessarily the best idea in the whole experiment – something that I agree with).

It’s also interesting to see what hasn’t changed – the value chain that produced the record is pretty standard. The band was supported by their label to go into the studio to make the music, and all the rest of the process right up to distribution is pretty standard. So it’s not a full DIY value chain like Kristin Hersh is using.

I’ve got no idea if this will work or not. But in a sense it doesn’t matter, because once it’s done, we’ll know something about this type of approach. And other bands and labels can try it themselves, or come up with a way to make this business model better.

The one thing that I do know is that if your business model is in trouble, trying out ideas that involve your customers more deeply in the process of creating things is probably smarter than suing them.

That was the end of the regular post, but here is where I’ll tell you a bit more about my version of the album. Carl Wilkinson has a good discussion of the ideas behind the album, whether or not it is a good idea for artists to give up control over track sequences, and the story behind his version of the album in this story at the Financial Times. Strangely, his first three tracks are identical to mine, even though I’m pretty sure we used a different method for picking songs.

In looking at this and a few other posts about the records, I think I messed up the artwork on mine. In any case, if you’d like to see the artwork, or check out my song choices, you can go here:

I’m pretty sure that the overlap between people reading this blog and Kaiser Chief fans is pretty small:

If you’re interested in hearing some of the music from the record, this is the first single Little Shocks:

 

If all this grabs your interest, you should check out the new record. But whatever you do, don’t buy my version – make your own!

(ralf says:
"When you face a turbulent environment, as record labels certainly do at the moment, then you have to experiment with new business models to find out what works", Tim writes above.

I have to add, just to make that shure: If you do think these times are not turbulent, and you are not overwhelmed by that, you are not moving fast enough! Now you have a problem! You do not seem to understand what people's new individuality, independence, and impatience really do imply for brands, businesses, and their success (where I might repeat myself).

The music industry, like car, publishing and energy industries are the best examples for coming late and never beginning to realize that ...)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

Your Marketing is the Product!

Via hitenshah.

Think about it! - Room for Your Thoughts:

 

 

 

And now put Them into Action!

Dating a Brand!?

A question I stumbled upon in tumblr a few weeks ago:

"What qualities do you look for when you’re dating someone?"

Now imagine, you are dating (sort of) a brand, see her, like her want to get to know her. What would you look for in a brand?

The answer from Penny was clear:

"Something different. Something unique. Something that will surprise me, impress me, enlighten me. Something genuine. Something contradictory."

Would your brand succeed in a date? Would your brand get a date in the first place?

Will they meet again? Will they stay together? Get kids? Grow a family? Live happily together for the rest of their lives?

You should work on the above. Without the above: no date. Without a date: no communication, no brand, no image, no story, no sale, no success, no future.

The 2 Dangers of Social Media: Instant Gratification!

Yes, you got it right, 2(!) dangers: Your fans want to be rewarded, and they want it in an instant, immediately. You trained them to.

And they await even more from you the next time you ask them for a favour. Yes, right, they understand that you ask them for a favour. No, they now do nothing without getting something in return.

You succeeded in creating sweet little doggies, tiny little seals! You turned your fans into circus animals without any individual or free will.

You did so by offering gimmicks and gadgets to win fans, to get a question answered, a tweet sent.

You did not understand Social Media and by that you killed it.
Your agency did not understand Social Media and you both killed it by thinking in reach, monologues, and bribery.

You bought your fans now - why should they do something for you without getting paid in the future? Do you think they are stupid? That they do not learn from your behaviour? That they do not adapt? They are not stupid.

You make them dumb. The dumber you act.

You should offer respect, challenges where people may grow.
You should offer a decent product, a great solution, value.

You should not go for reflexes, but for meaning!

[L/M NET] Konstantin Weiss > "Don't pitch. But if you do - here's how to."

(L/M NET: the blogged experience & expertise of some of the best minds in Innovation, Brand Engagement, Communication Agility:
Tom - Tim - Konstantin - Helge - Drew - Charles - Anthony - Adrian)

The best advice I got so far about pitches: don't pitch. Pitch is against the nature of user experience design process. But if you want and need to pitch anyway - here are some aspects I learnt so far.

Is there a pitch at all?

In most cases, there is no pitch. Instead, you are in one of these situations:

1. There never was a pitch. The decision was already made and you lost.
2. There never was a pitch. The client just wants an agency presentation but fails to communicate it.
3. There never was a project. Not even a budget. The middle management is having fun.
4. You have already lost the pitch. Because neither you have good connection nor preparation. Pitching would be a waste of time and energy.
5. You have already won the pitch. The battle was won even before it took place, because you have good connection and preparation.
6. There was a pitch. You did not recognize it. Because it was just testing your daily work.

What is your goal?

If you are sure there is a pitch and you want to pitch, ask yourself: What is it you want to achieve? - Do you want to present a solution that you are convinced of as the best one? Then don't be upset if you lose - the client wouldn't value your work anyway, so you and the client are not the best fit. But your time/resources will still be lost. - Do you want to win the pitch above all? Have in mind: you might end up paying with your nerves during the project. Many projects are doomed from the start because clients' and your expectations are not in sync.

Refine the pitch for audience

Your preparation and acting should depend on the people you are presenting to.

For the Top Management:

• Be honest.
• Address their goals.
• Transcend their goals. Show them there is a bigger vision.
• Ask uncomfortable questions.
• Propose a solution.
• Focus on the essence.
• Show them you can handle the complexity.
• Exercise uninteresting listening.

For the Middle Management:

• Formost: Understand the middle managements real (egoistic) goals.
• The IBM-principle: Show them that they can't make a wrong decision because you're the pick of the bunch. If the project fails, it's not their fault. They've taken the best agency there is. (That's how IBM was so successful in the past)
• Make clear that choosing you will be appreciated by the top management.
• Make clear that not choosing you will result in big justification to the top management.

For the Experts:

• Be honest.
• Don't overestimate.
• Show that you respect their expertise.
• Dive into detail.
• Ask critical questions.
• Treat them as your partner, who they actually are.

The ingredients of a pitch

Connections - 45%

1. If you have deep relationships into the client's company + know the relationships of your competitors - pitch.
2. If you have deep relationships into the client's company, but don't know the relationships of your competitors - consider a pitch.
3. If you don't have relationships into the client's company - you are free to test what you always wanted to test, but never dared. Minimum risc. Minimum cost. Just do it! Pitch!

Concept - 10%

• Take this for granted, you will not achieve an extraordinary solution if you follow all rules of the briefing. You may get an ordinary solution. So do your competitors. That's not worth the fight. Disobey. Come up with good arguments, why you disobey. You have a chance to win:
  1. You show deep understanding of the issues, not only symptoms.
  2. Your solution is thus surprisingly performative.
  3. You are hardly comparable.
• Tell a scenario from the user's point of view. Mention that you are eager to understand the business and technology aspects of the project. But the user (normally) does not care. It's the users view that matters here, and you are their advocate. In the end, show how business goals are met as well as the tech feasibility.
• Work on decent rhetorics. Address the obvious pain. Guide through your approach to your positions. Surprise with your manifestation, but make it damn rooted in the issues and positions.
• Be a story teller. Look for the catharsis. And in between - make the audience smile.
• Don't overestimate the concept. Most decision makers don't have much of a clue. Visual Design and Budget plays a much greater role.
• Last: Show them that your idea is not boring common sense, but surprising.

Visual Design - 20%

• 90% of all visual designs with finesse and balance fail. They are badly projected in the conference room of decision makers.
• Consider a realistic design - and decide against it. Do rock 'n roll instead. Your references designate you as an expert, you don't have to prove it now. Instead, aim at their hearts. Emotion wins.

Budget - 20%

Concerning money I have to say: It depends so much on the client. The only rules of thumb that I know are:

• If you are far too expensive, you're out.
• If the client is a big company, don't be cheap. For them it's far too expensive if the project fails. If you are too cheap and the project fails, the client's responsibles will have problems to justify their choice. So in order to minimize the risk, they'll rather take somebody with a realistic estimation.
• Don't forget the IBM-principle (see "Middle Management" above).

Luck - 5%

• You can never be sure. You can't predict everything. Be prepared to lose anyway.

"I can't afford not to pitch"

Agencies easily say, that they cannot afford to leave out pitches. That's a valid conclusion, but not before considering this aspect: If you are a small agency, pitching is expensive. Even if it is a small one, it will bind - say - one consultant and a visual designer for a week. That's two weeks of manpower that you can spend on something maybe more meaningful. You could make a small project with a client you love for free, knowing that the output will be not designed by committee. This project may generate enough buzz to get clients just by appreciating your agency.

One last piece of advice

Use pitches (at minimum risc, minimum cost) to let your junior, but most promising people get the experience, smell the pitch air, get addicted to the sitaution, lose their nervousness, and learn.

If there is no need for that: avoid pitching if you can. Rather invest the energy elsewhere. Share your thoughts. Teach. Play. Make your own products.

My best advice is: invest in people you love to work with, no matter what positions they are in. It does not pay off in the short run. But after a while you'll have a great working environment and be able to do have great outcome. That's something, considering how much time you spend at work in your life.

Hopefully you enjoyed the advices. I'll be glad to know what you experienced and think.

---

Thanks to Benjamin Birkenhake, Tobias Jordans, Indra Schlachter, Lutz Schmitt, Marian Steinbach and Ralf Schwartz for the feedback to drafts of this article, as well as Saneef Ansari for correcting my poor English.

(ralf says:
For once please find my comments incorporated.)

Konstantin is partner of iA in Zurich. He consults and develops concepts focusing on User and Reading Experience. He blogs at konnexus about the impact of culture technologies and UX. Twitter: @konnexus

"Advertisers Think You Are Stupid."

Via thisisnthappiness.