Ideas cannot become shared ideas without some awareness of those ideas. You and others will not share beliefs and behaviors regarding water ice in comets without first having awareness. But, in an age of markets, networks and organizations, we all can and do become aware of ideas without regard to their accuracy. Our understanding —even if completely inaccurate and wrong — can and does lead to shared ideas and shared values. When this happens, truth deviates from accuracy. We share ideas and accept them as truth even though they are inaccurate. All of which suggests that our future and the future of our children and others around the globe will become more sustainable when our markets, networks, organizations, friends and families put more effort into the shared idea of accuracy than the shared idea of truth.
Accuracy and Truth (via azspot)
as the atlantic says, “think. again.”
Most user-generated content is created as communication in small groups, but since we’re so unused to communications media and broadcast media being mixed together, we think that everyone is now broadcasting. This is a mistake. If we listened in on other people’s phone calls, we’d know to expect small talk, inside jokes, and the like, but people’s phone calls aren’t out in the open. One of the driving forces behind much user-generated content is that conversation is no longer limited to social cul-de-sacs like the phone.
Clay Shirky (via azspot)
This is actually something we’ve always acknowledged at Vimeo. We even had an awkwardly-worded tag line for a while, “not everyone should see everything,” that was meant to convey the closed nature of some interactions on the site. I like how Clay has expressed the ideas here.(via dalasverdugo)
exactly.
man, that’s it.
Untangling brand and customer experience, in 10 minutes or less
Does the brand define the customer experience, or is the customer experience the brand? Your work may involve both, but you probably attack problems with a bias for one or the other.
a common business problem is not understanding how this works, what makes sense and what is appropriate. not just from a communications stand-point but, really, how you operate and engage across the board.
this is a great video that distills the issue, misconceptions and proper solutions. watch it and you’ll probably want to start reverse engineering your business.
daunting? well, if you can’t take the heat then get out of the kitchen.
(via alex)
In short, Sutherland argues that we need to start to value intangible, emotional experiences and that marketing, communications and, yes, even advertising can help bring that about. By starting to place importance on experiences and appreciation instead of objects and consumption, we become more sustainable as a society while also becoming more creative as a culture.
There’s a theory in computer science called the technology acceptance model, which basically holds that people use technologies that seem useful and easy to use. Like many theories that have wide support, it makes common sense. What does that mean for news organizations? If they want their readers to embrace interactive features on their sites, these features must not be hidden or confusing or clunky. These interactive features can’t be things that news organization let readers use, but that they don’t let their employees delve into and fully explore. And news organizations can’t whip their employees into such a frenzy of fear that they might violate some internal social-media rule that the employees don’t bother to try anything new.
Why? Because in the final analysis, the news organizations — whether they be traditional newspapers or online-only news sources — that thrive and survive will be the ones where their news finds the most people.
a lot of people are overlooking how we got here in the first place. why did tv, newspapers and magazines be the tool (please note emphasis) of choice for broadcast and communication? society accepted them as useful and easy to use. today’s iphone was yesterday’s paper folded under the arm of a businessman stepping onto a train.
attitudes have changed because the technology has allowed them to change. we’re constructing our own future. some things will work, most won’t but the wave of bed-shitting where people think industries are going to disappear and lives will be lost simply isn’t true. calm down, sit down and use your brain. everything will be okay because you have the power to make it so.
addendum - here is a good example:
think about that. this wine bar now has a genuine, valuable interaction in the palm of mr. knell’s hand. no crazy “on brand” messaging. just being real, smart and intuitive. the devil is in the details and good biz is a lot more connected to psychology and design than most want to admit.
Unless you add some context to the percentage, there is no meaning. (via Statistics Without Context — Simple Complexity)
please keep this in mind.
What does it mean, exactly, to “embrace the medium”? Apparently, it means a compulsive dedication to what essentially amounts to busy work: checking in with your followers or friends repeatedly and often, authoring bursts of quasi-communiqués at all hours of the day, continually updating your statuses, tending a limitless onslaught of friend requests, managing an unyielding firehose of housekeeping tasks. It just means spending a lot of time just wasting time. And not just that, but it also means creating all of this busy work for other people, too; creating or updating or inputting more stuff for everyone to read — or more accurately, for everyone to feel they have to keep up with. We’re all blindsiding ourselves and one another with trivial obligations.
Excuse me while I go and post this to Twitter.
People will also believe that they understand something when they don’t really understand it. Have you ever left a meeting where everyone seemed to be in agreement, yet their later actions made it clear that they didn’t agree after all? It’s common to see nodding heads in a room when people don’t agree – they think they agree but in reality they don’t. This is because when an explanation is sufficiently vague, people are free to believe what they want to believe. Politicians often use this rhetorical principle to great effect. Words like “freedom, justice and fairness” mean different things to different people. Vague explanations are common in business, and they can give the illusion of agreement. But they don’t get results.
Increasingly the choice of whether to adopt, or opt-in to a technology is one of whether to opt-out of society.
