[Originally posted November,2007]

Chris Schroeder riffs on my whole “Social Object” marketing schtick with this very salient thought:

If your company wants to succeed, it needs to have a social object marketing plan.

Amen to that. But note what Chris also says:

I don’t know about you, but when somebody walks by with an iPhone, I notice. If I see a kid stroll by me in some limited edition Nikes, that registers with me too.

Therein lies the rub. The Social Object idea is easy to get if your product is highly remarkable, highly sociable. An iPhone or the latest pair of Nike’s are both fine examples of this.
But I can already hear your inner MBA saying, “Yeah, but what if you don’t work for Nike or Apple? What if your product is boring home loans, auto insurance or… [the list of boring products is pretty long].
My standard answer to that is, “Social Gestures beget Social Objects.”
Which is another way of saying, maybe the way you relate to somebody as a human being plays a part in all this. Maybe describing the product as “boring” is just one more bullshit lie we tell ourselves in order to make the world seem less complicated and scary. Hey, my product is inherently dull and boring, therefore I get to be inherently dull and boring, too. Hooray!
Nowadays, thanks to folk like Nike, we think of sneakers as “non-boring” brands. This wasn’t true when I was a kid. Back then sneakers were those bloody awful $3 plimsolls we wore in Phys Ed. But it took companies like Nike and Adidas to come along and by shear force of will, raise the level of conversation in the sneaker department, before sneakers became bona fide global social objects, bona fide global powerhouse brands.
The decision to raise the level of conversation isn’t economic. Nor is it an intellectual decision. It’s a moral decision. But whether you have the stomach for it is up to you.
Like I told Thomas almost 3 years ago re. English bespoke tailoring, “Own the conversation by improving the conversation.” And hey, it worked. His sales went up 300% in 6 months.
It wasn’t the change in product that made Thomas’ suits Social Objects. It was changing the way he talked to people. The same applies to Stormhoek, which 3 years ago was an $8 bottle of South African wine nobody had ever heard of. Conversation. Matters.
So all you corporate MBAs out there, here’s a little tip. When you planning on how to embrace the brave new world of Web 2.0, the first question you ask yourself should not be “What tools do I use?”
Blogs, RSS, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook- it doesn’t matter.
The first question you should REALLY ask yourself is:
“How do I want to change the way I talk to people?”
And hopefully the rest should follow.
Think about it.
[Bonus Link: For a more academic take on social objects, check out this post from Anthropologist, Jyri Engestrom.]

Have you added the free gapingvoid cartoon widget to your blog or website yet? Just askin’….

I have updated the MP database to reflect current MPs. All 307 sitting MPs should now be correct. If there are issues, let me know. I will work on creating a new letter for people to send Re: C-32.

The missing MP is in the riding of Winnipeg North which has been vacant since April 27, 2010, when Judy Wasylycia-Leis announced her retirement from federal politics. She is running for mayor of Winnipeg.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Back in the mid-90s, when the Internet was still the size of a tadpole and TV was still the Big Kahuna, I was working in a large advertising agency that had many big, blue-chip clients.

We were given a brief to work on, a well-known laundry detergent.

All the other teams went away and came back with ideas for big-production TV commercials. Except me.

I had this idea about using GoCards, those free advertising postcards I started seeing around in all the trendy bars at the time.

It wasn’t rocket science. For pennies on the dollar, I reckoned you could try out a lot of different ideas- dozens of them, literally- and from tallying which cards were being picked up by people and which ones weren’t, you could could easily measure which ideas were working or not. Not unlike today’s Internet, the same way you can tell which blog posts of yours are working from the number of retweets they get. Stuff we all take for granted now.

Secondly, because the client was a laundry detergent, you’d really have to push the envelope to get people’s attention inside these trendy bars. It would force you to work your ideas faster, cheaper, better and harder. It would push you, it would push the client and the brand.

If any the ideas took off, I mean, REALLY took off, then you’d have enough info to go on to scale up the campaign into bigger media- TV, large magazines and whatnot.

Unlike most ad campaigns out there at the time, you’d would already have enough information to know that the campaign- the idea- was WAS ALREADY WORKING BEFORE your dear client had spent any real money.

It was cheap, it was disruptive, and… it was accountable.

The suits didn’t like the idea. My boss didn’t like it, either. Even my art director was a bit grumbly and doubtful. The idea never left the building. The client never saw it. The idea was killed in the first round.

The agency’s perspective was, they didn’t earn its money from “little” ideas. The agency earned its money for “BIG” ideas…. ones that cost lots of money and needed “a cast of thousands” etc. Superbowl ads and whatnot.

They had forgotten that all big ideas start life out as small ideas.

Make of this what you will.

I just wrote the [very long] blog headline above just to give y’all something to chew on…

I’m guessing most of us here are familiar with Techcrunch, yes?

Like I said earlier, we’re incredible beings. So frickin’ go do something about it. Frickin’ go do something that matters. Exactly.

God Bless…

SCO's argument asking for more time is interesting, because we learn that Novell asked to -- and SCO agreed they could -- attach 60 more documents to the Appendix. And Stuart Singer, who takes credit in his bio on Boies Schiller's website for representing SCO as lead counsel at this same court of appeals the last time SCO appealed, is busy with another case, working on a preliminary injunction proceeding. Well. Almost. It doesn't say the "SCO" word:Won appellate decision from Tenth Circuit (August 2009) regarding ownership of copyrights and contract rights for the UNIX operating system. Heh heh. They are incorrigible. Not exactly the whole story, eh? What he won was a jury trial to *determine* the ownership of UNIX and UnixWare copyrights and contract rights, but the jury at the trial said Novell retained ownership of the copyrights for UNIX and UnixWare in 1995-6, and the judge ruled that Novell had the right to waive contractual violations, so SCO lost completely, despite the Court of Appeals granting SCO that extra bite of the apple with a jury trial. Which, I must point out, reached exactly the same conclusion that the first judge had on summary judgment way back in August of 2007. Singer's bio makes it sound like SCO prevailed. No wonder Bloomberg got it so wrong today [see News Picks]. That's the trouble with fibs and spin. They detach your mind from reality. Over time, that can't be good for anybody's mental health.

Preliminary injunctions are very, very hard to win, because one of the things you have to demonstrate early in the case, meaning before you've done discovery, is that you probably will win in the end, so it's a legitimate excuse this time. But what might those extra 60 documents be, I wonder?

["Awake", the print I featured in this Monday's newsletter etc.]

We’re incredible beings. And I want to make and sell art that maybe, just maybe, makes people think, even for a short while, that I’m not wrong, either.

[I can think of worse ways to make a living. Lord knows, we've all tried a few of those...]

So yeah, we’re incredible beings. But it’s not enough to believe it; you actually have to live it. Even if you’re going to fail. most of the time. That’s where the REAL work lies.

But hey, at least you tried.

Life is short, People. You’re going to be dead soon. So frickin’ go do something about it. Frickin’ go do something that matters. Seriously.

Thanks for hearing my rant. God Bless…

I don’t know if it was Brian Clark over at Copyblogger who first popularized the term, “Content Marketing”, but it’s he I most associate it with.

Content Marketing is exactly what is sounds like- creating content in order to more effectively market whatever it is you’re selling.

Copyblogger itself is a really good example of content marketing. It’s basically a daily advice column for anyone trying to do content marketing professionally. You get to read it for free, but hey, Brian and his team have other products they sell which are all designed to be interesting, useful and valuable to their core audience.

And Copyblogger rakes it in as a result; it’s now a seven-figure business.

Back in 2003, eons ago in Internet time, I remember talking to Henry Copeland, the founder of Blogads.com. This was well before the huge advertising market emerged for large sites like Techcrunch, Gawker, Mashable and BoingBoing, back when even the largest blogs were far smaller and far more personal than they are today.

We were chatting about potential business models for blogs, short and long-term. This was still very early days, remember…

“As far as I can tell,” said Henry, “the most viable business model for blogging these days is for under-employed consultants to show off how smart they are.”

Consultants showing off how smart they are? Under-employed or over-employed, that is content marketing. Exactly.

You write a blog. You build a dedicated following. You leave a discreet, non-pushy trail of breadcrumbs to what your business actually does for money. If X percent of your readers take the bait and become paying customers, hey, you win.

Like the headline of this post says, it’s much easier to get paid work out of people if they’re already your fanboy.

What I like about this model is that it’s simple. It isn’t rocket science. And perhaps more importantly, it’s free from the tyranny of wanting or needing huge traffic.

[Warning- VERY rough math to follow:] English Cut can only make and sell about 100 hand-tailored Savile Row suits a year. I can only handle a small handful of Cube Grenade clients at one time. Same with James Governor at Redmonk or Piers Fawkes at PSFK. And if say, our blogs can convert one or two percent of our hardcore readers into customers, in theory, the total readership per blog only needs to be fifty or a hundred times that in order to make the business viable. A few hundred people, maybe a couple of thousand- very attainable (and sustainable) numbers.

So if you get it right, you can just do your thing, delighting, thrilling (and selling to) the audience that you already have, without obsessing over which “A-Lister” is linking to you (or not),  or how many new Twittter followers you’ve gotten (or haven’t) since last month. Nor do you have sleepless nights fretting over the fact that your blog doesn’t have the same number of readers as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Economist, Wired etc. Or whatever silly, energy-draining neuroses that so many other social media mavens seem to fall prey to.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, effective content marketing requires two things: world-class content and a world-class product. Harder than it looks. Life is unfair.

Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid has posted a 3 part interview (Part 1,Part 2,Part 3)with me discussing Copyright and Bill C-32.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[Originally posted October, 2006.]

One of the main reasons I never really pursued corporate blog consulting as a career, even though I’ve had some definite opportunities in this department, is because of what I call “The Cleopatra Effect”.

I remember when I was a kid watching this old black & white movie about Cleopatra.

I can’t remember the name of the movie, but one scene always stuck with me:

Cleopatra is walking through the palace, when she’s suddenly stopped by the sound of pretty music, being played off in the distance.

She follows the sound of the music through the palace, till eventually she finds one of her courtiers in the garden, playing the harp.

“What pretty music,” she says to the courtier. “You play beautifully.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” says the courtier, obviously flattered.

“I would love to play music like that,” says Cleopatra. “Do you think you could teach me?”

The courtier, now that he’s feeling flattered, tries to win even more of her favor.

“Well, yes,” he gushes. “I’m sure a Queen as talented as you in so many things, would be talented at this as well.”

“Oh, good,” says Cleopatra, obviously delighted. “Here’s the deal. You teach me to play the harp. If I cannot play as well as you within one month, I will have you flogged. If I cannot play as well as you within three months, I will have you executed.”

The courtier’s face turns white. Cleopatra gives the courtier an evil smirk and then turns and walks off.

Make of this what you will.

[Buy the "Create Or Die" print here etc.]

I believe that both our economic and spiritual future, good or bad, is directly related to our ability to unlock the latent creativity within us.

There. I’ve said it.

It’s been six years since I first started blogging what would eventually end up being my first book, Ignore Everybody.

The book didn’t really start off with a plan. Like I said at the very beginning,

“So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked for me over the years.”

That was it. One person’s ramblings. No big, authoritative volume with lots of practical how-to’s, case studies and academic citations.

Some people didn’t care for that. “I paid $23.00 for a hardback edition and I expect RESULTS, dammit!”

Results!

Ah. But I never said anything about results. There was no plan, you see. That’s because there is no plan. There never is.

Writing about creativity is a messy business because creativity is a messy business.

Even using the word “creativity” in conversation is going to get you in trouble from some quarters. Stick your head above the parapet for just a few seconds and watch the arrows start flying at you.

Yet somewhere in the back of our minds, we all know it’s too important a subject to ignore, too important a reality not to confront.

Why? Because when I first started writing Ignore Everybody, I was coming at it from a very personal angle. Confronting one’s existential need to be “creative”, to express oneself etc. Which is why the book did so well with teenagers, college students and young adults just starting out in the working world. That’s the time of life to be thinking about all that.

But now, six years later I’m a bit older and bit more experienced. Maybe a lot more.

And time and experience has led me to conclude that even if we hate the word “creativity”, even if it’s a nasty, annoying, sophomoric, hipster-dipster, New Age gagfest that really should have no place among the serious, results-orientated world of equally serious, result-orientated grownups…

It’s where all meaningful growth is going to come from, both internal and external, whether we like it or not.

I don’t believe creativity can be taught, not really, but I do believe:

• That with a bit of prodding in the right places, individuals can train themselves to be more creative.
• That with a bit of prodding in the right places, individuals working as a team can train themselves to be more creative.
• That with a bit of prodding in the right places, companies and organizations can train themselves to be more creative.
• That with a bit of prodding in the right places, societies can train themselves to be more creative.

And that if they can do this, the value they create will be off the scale.

I’ll say it again: I believe that both our economic and spiritual future, good or bad, is directly related to our ability to unlock the latent creativity within us.

Let the journey begin…

I think it ought to inspire you, reading Allen's complaint [PDF], that it might get you to the tipping point, or at least help you to understand why most engineers do hate software patents, because they are a drain on the economy and a hindrance to innovation. So we did Allen's complaint as text, sort of as Exhibit A, shall we say, illustrating the point.

But if you can figure out precisely what this litigation is about from this complaint, what the defendants are alleged to have done wrong, you are doing better than I am. It's unbelievably vague.

So are the patents. What is it that these patents do? What's the process or method? I mean, "Alerting Users to Items of Current Interest", a patent on a system for recommending things that might interest you based on your interest in something else? How's this for prior art? When I go to the local hamburger joint, they ask me if I want fries with my burger.

On August 14'th I gave a presentation on legal protection for technological measures, and why this policy doesn't fit well within Copyright law (Slides, link to audio recording)

Summary: The types of activities which copyright regulates all assume that you already have access to content. Copyright never concerned itself with concept of access, which was left to other laws.

Technical measures can restrict access, but can't in the real world directly restrict the types of activities that copyright regulates.

Copyright and technical measures are disjoint, but technical measures and other areas of law such as contract and e-commerce overlap.

Is technology useful for stopping an authorized person from doing things which Copyright regulates? Should we radically change "Copyright" to address this problem, or is this a non-Copyright issue?

read more

On August 5'th I received an email that was "From: min.moore@pch.gc.ca". It had no content, but two file attachments - one HTML and one GIF. Thunderbird warned that it was most likely a scam, given this is a common technique used by spammers to avoid SPAM detection software.

I extracted the file attachments, and I wasn't all that surprised to learn that it was a form letter originating from the Heritage Minister's office. This isn't the most technologically literate Minister or department in Canada, and it was unlikely that ensuring emails wouldn't be confused as SPAM or scams would be something they would know much about.

The GIF image was a scan of a form letter, which reads as follows. Having read it, I think Thunderbird was right to have automatically detected it as a scam.

read more

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

08/26/2010 - 890 OBJECTIONS to 879 Bill of Costs filed by Plaintiff SCO Group. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit A)(Normand, Edward) (Entered: 08/26/2010)

I will translate for you. What that means is that SCO would like to pay less. If Novell had lost, and they had been ordered to pay SCO's bill of costs, SCO would have fervently argued the opposite. Last time, SCO was able to get a bit knocked off the bill, so they may again. But they'll probably still have to pay something. But will they? In real life, I mean. Not on paper.