happykatie :: katie rocks out the interwebs

Commu(k)nitty - lessons for marketers from crafters

Finally up!!  This is a wrap up of one of my favorite SXSWi discussions.  Stephen Houghton (of CLIF bars) lead a discussion on marketing and community outreach for marketers as learned through the online crafting world.

Some sites to know in the crafting world:

• www.craftster.org
• www.craftzine.com
• www.knitty.com
• www.etsy.com
• www.ravelry.com - Over 300,000 active users on on Ravelry in less than 3 years.  Started after a request for an online representation of a knitter's 3-ring binder.
• www.twistcollective.com - started by indie knit designers that wanted to take online only publishing into their own hands.  Readers pay per pattern.

Online spots like Flickr groups help people connect and teach other, also to market and to share messages visually.

Artist Larissa Brown had an art installation of 100s of hats (meat head art project - see the Flickr group here) - when installation was over, she donated to charity and held shows specifically for charitable purposes.  Held a knitalong to collect enough hats and spread the word.

Secret pal exchanges - like sockapalooza - kind of like secret santa, someone organizes online and you get a secret pal and exchange packages with a stranger in line with a theme.

Knitters online do a lot of modifications online - mashups and one-offs using everyday products. 

Why are knitters online?  Marketing Coraline (a movie) was afraid of being marketed as a child's movie and wanted something more unique and 'less fluffy'.  All of the clothing (Althea Chrome of Bugknits) was handmade all on sewing needles.

Found old boxes with artifacts from the film inside and sent to knitters - here's something for you and your community.  Key had a tag with URL (www.coraline.com) and a code to unlock a featurette of Althea knitting Coraline's sweaters months before the movie set out.

nipperknits - Jenn Jarvis - was hired to create pattern of a life-size sweater pattern from the film for the knitters to use.  Knitters were only one piece of the strategy - but a strong part.  Box office results

Top 50 sites that referred to the movie sites were ravelry, knitty and nipperknits -- could see how knitters banded together and drove a TON of traffic.  Tricky part came when marketers had to login as personal identity (as a marketer reaching out to public), was uncomfortable at first to be pushing corporate line, but the audience and project was just too perfect and personal so it turned out well.

The key was that they weren't using or preying on a community, rather they were making a very personal connection.  Point was not 'how are we going to blast the message' all PR-style.  Rather was to reach out to very specific and cross-over knitting related Bloggers and communities.  Must get over notion that you have a sliver reach - it's everything combined that has meaning (not just one blogger that seems niche).  It's not about who is a target (who is this campaign against!?!?), instead it's about who can you build up and connect with.

What makes a successful marketing community?

• Must meet needs of users - not just a place to talk about stuff, must do what it needs to do

You can never predict what people want in your community - definite element of letting go and this can be difficult.  Interesting example of unexpected interest - www.cheaptweets.com got a HUGE following of Etsy sellers, very different than the other major corporate sponsors involved.  Just have to go with it.

Just like knitters, architects like to show off their stuff.  Architectural Digest ran a community that let architects share their photos, building materials, etc.  This all drove traffic to their site and drove subscription numbers.

Woot t-shirts another great community example - started with discussions on designs, then community grew   You can do it with almost any models, but you must be aware of how you are going to keep the crap out.  Find the trusted people in those communities and let them help you do your work.

To create a good community, you must have a product that people care about.  Without passion, creating community becomes problematic.  Need to take a look at how consumers are intimate and emotionally connected with your brand.

Coraline knitting project photo thanks to Flickr user purlgurl

Are PR agencies dead and done?

A discussion on the future realities of the Public Relations field as we know about it:

Say something that is worth re-Tweeting.  Peter separates Twitter into two segments:

1. Yogurt - 'I'm eating yogurt'
2. Informational yogurt - 'A new yogurt spot opened and is giving off 50% on yogurt'

Press releases will be dead incredibly soon.  Agencies that are smart are dedicating people just to Social Media.  New grads are already familiar  (Social Media = ability to screw up to a much larger group of people in a much shorter amount of time)

Be doing SEO on your releases - add pieces of your press releases on your Blog posts, podcasts and other sites.  Let reporters access your information how they want it.  You write a press release as a formality.  Tell your story, use keyword density and change what you share.  It's not how you share, but WHAT you share - that's how your compel reporters.

You now have the ability to reach your clients directly - go to them!  When is the last time a reporter covered a story on your company because of releaseing a press release?  Probably never or in an incredibly long time.

Now more than ever, you need to know how to write - write well, write succinctly (140 character attention span for many) and write optimized text.  You should be looking at your press releases as writing them in a way that you would want to read a story in the NY Times.

ADOS - Attention Deficit Ooooh Shiny = we've all got it.

Corporate culture is changing, the new guys replacing the old dead white guys in corporations are struggling in the economy and having to support their parents.  It's not if you're caught, it's WHEN you're caught when not being transparent - and it'll suck.

Even if your brand shouldn't be Tweeting, you should be LOOKING at Twitter and monitoring updates.  Companies should be getting reports from PR companies on what the buzz is on various social networks. 

Everything you listen to tells you how people are sharing, interacting and treating your brand.  You need to be tracking a variety of networks and engage in each of them.  There is separate richness in each network.  If you're not tracking this stuff (or having your agency do it) then you are losing out.

If you call yourself a Social Media Expert, first thing that people do is look at your Twitter followers.  If you have good things to share, there will be a solid number of people following you.  This goes for any industry - dentists that are experts should have people wanting to talk to them about dental crowns.  Walk the walk.

Interesting Twitter customer service example - annoyed Tweet about McDonald's not serving burgers ready to go behind the counter at 10:54am (lunch starts at 11am).  A few days in another state, has a McDonald's gift card for $200 waiting in his hotel room with an apology note.  McDonalds was paying attention.

Recommendations:

• Own your own name on all social networks - don't have to use them all, just grab it before it's gone
• Listen - know what people say about your
• Turn to an intern who has already been using this technology - let them teach you.  Don't ever think that there isn't any more to learn.  Learn how to Tweet from them, then teach them what to Tweet.  You have the business and marketing knowledge, learn the technology from them.

Not always old school vs. new school - completely depends on your audience.  NPR story today saying certain print publications are thriving because of their audience (not sitting at desk all day on the Internet).  Not everyone is like you.  Think outside the box.

Broadcasting messages at audiences is dead.  PR is NOT dead.  It's all changing.

There is a creepiness factor that people will just have to work through - companies will increasingly engage people individually.  Problems get solved, people get happy, done deal.  It's just new.  Every conversation requires a unique response.  That is how you build relationships. 

Random Skittles photo thanks to Flickr user pApEr.lip -- this year at SXSWi there was an annoyingly large number of mentions on the "failure" and "outrage" over the recent Skittles campaign.  Well, I say well done Skittles.  We've been talking about you all week and you are pretty much all I am wanting to eat right now.

Wisdom. Crowds. Design. Derek Powazek.

Awesome presenter Derek Powazek (of www.fray.com and www.powzek.com) speaks today on:  How do we apply James Surowiecki's The Wisdom of Crowds to our online design and creation?  While the book was written about economics, the concept is also great for designers wanting to get user feedback and participation on sites, which is pretty much everyone.

Incredibly misunderstood concept - does NOT mean that when you get a crowd of people in a room that they are all smart.  You have to work at it.  The idea really started with Francis Galton who ran a cow guessing contest at a fair.  1,198 pounds - no one got it.  But whenever he collected the answers and averaged them out, the median guess was 1,128 pounds.

So how was it that individually everyone was wrong, but collectively everyone was right?  That is the phenomenon of the wisdom of crowds.  Any news site with a 'most emailed stories' page where the crowd is making a single decision on who would like this story, but collectively you see what the Community thinks is most relevant.  Same thing happens in a P2P service - pile of people sharing MP3s, the more something is shared the more popular it must be.  When sorted and agregated, you can see what the most popular

4 elements of 'wise crowds':

1. Diversity - background, opinion, wide variety of inputs.
2. Independence - each person must be able to contribute in their own way, for their own reasons to avoid group think.
3. Decentralization - there's no one in charge, it just happens.
4. Aggregation - take all data into a central area to condense it down.

Bringing the 4 elements online:

1. Small simple tasks - can't ask someone to do too much.  A comment form, for instance, is an open petri dish where anything can grow.  There needs to be an answer - let people speak so they feel good, okay... but let them work towards an answer.
   1. Very simple:  Hot or Not / Threadless design submission (a little more complicated, rating by number and saying how you'd buy it)
   2. Less simple:  Assignment Zero (www.newsassignment.net) - magazine quality content from the crowd.  Initially was too broad of a task - write stories!  No one did it, so they broke it down to let people nominate folks to be interviewed.  Then asked people to interview them.  Then editors helped with the stories.  Much easier.   
2. Large diverse groups - Group think happens when participants in the crowd put themselves ahead of the crowd.  They limit their input out of fear.  The antidote is not to avoid groups, but to design communities to encourage participation.  No raising barriers of entry over time, rather they should lower them.
   1. Chevy Tahoe campaign - crowd sourced their next television commercial.  Someone should've spoken their doubts.
3. Design for selfishness - People want/need to get something out of doing something for you.  Attention, sense of release, personal satisfaction.  Have to design interface to take into account peoples' selfish motives for participation.  Is it worth their time?  What do THEY get for participating?  This selfishness is very important, when you lose it things go off the rails much more quickly.  There is wisdom in the data.
4. Result aggregation - How to take the aggregate data without turning it into a game?  When it turns into a game or contest, things can take a different turn.  People like to break the rules and win, not be themselves and share.
   
   Favrd is a good example of this:  www.favrd.com.  It takes the favorite information within Twitter to tally it up on the site.  No one votes, it just pops up.
   
   The Heisenberg Problem - Flickr's Interestingness, an algorithm on most to least interesting based on views, comments, favorites, etc.  They created a game - to be the winner, you have to be number one on the list.  That takes this ranking and gave an incentive for bad behavior (spamming groups, bugging friends to comments, etc.) - all to reverse engineer the algorithm.  After it had been up for a bit, they lowered the focus on that page and moved to:  www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days -- a random 'smoosh' of interesting photos on Flickr.  No more ranked list - far more random display of well-ranked photos.  It is now less of a game - the interface can change how it all works.
   
   Threadless has avoided this by not displaying the ranking of a submission to avoid group think.  The majority of online polls separate data input from results to avoid this as well.
   
   Popularity does NOT have to rule.  Popular doesn't always mean best.  Most votes doesn't have to win:  Amazon product review page - show both favorable and critical review to show the disagreement.  Not just the best or worst review, rather one from each angle presented side by side.  Also focus on 'most helpful' vs. the most recent review.

Implicit vs. Explicit Feedback
Neat or Not smiley face / Threadless numbered ranking / Amazon 'yes or no' review helpful / millions of starred feedback version.  Different interfaces work for different projects, but never use more than you need.  Never ask people to do more thinking than they have to - can't think of a really good reason to NOT use thumbs up or thumbs down.  Most 5 star ratings average to 2.5 - 3.5 stars anyway.

• Page views
• Searches
• Velocity
• Interestingness - catch all for algorithms to monitor all of this 'stuff'.

Design matters
How you ask questions changes the answers you get.  The interface that you collect feedback on changes the results on your site.  Example:  Kvetch (Yiddish word for complaining) site to complaining www.kvetch.com on random topics.  Was meant to be light and funny, but ended up very very dark.  The initial design was dark black with orange and red, after a redesign happened (with light background, rounded corners and knobs) and the responses were dramatically different.

Cognitive performance affected by the colors people see. Red creates a fear response - motivator to avoid mistakes and get details oriented.  Blue creates a calmer and more emotional stance where they are freer to be creative.

Putting it all together
Who is doing this right? 

• Brooklyn Museum's Click! gallery (www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/click) on the changing face of Brooklyn.  400 photos submitted, users had to rank themselves on what kind of 'expert' they are and how into art they are.  Interesting the correlation between expert status and photos selected.  Photos that won were printed and displayed - but their size was dependent on the number of votes received.
• Get Satisfaction - allows users to perform a small simple task ('I like this idea!' button) and also bump up the most well liked post to the top.  Other implicit feedback data is also aggregated by sharing replies, number of people talking on thread, etc.  Also, great visual in 'the mood in here' by smiley face bar chart.  These are all in addition to the long lists of posts - find bits to plug in to create a better experience.

Seeing things
In online spaces, we are deprived of real world / human interaction data (facial expressions, tone of voice, etc.) are gone.  So our brains work twice as hard to fill in that missing data.  When we feel out of control, our brains make up stories.  No social data, so we fill it in.  This is why people are insane on the Internet - they fill in with completely offbase ideas.

Using smart community settings will help you see patterns in the chaos and not have to fill in with stories.  Help people get in touch with something they fell in control of and participate in the Community is the best thing.

Photo thanks to Flickr user monovinyl

Crafting your Blogging voice (with obsession) at SXSWi 2009

John Gruber (Daring Fireball) and Merlin Mann - How to turbo-charge your Blog

"We don't make movies to make money.  We make money to make more movies" ~Walt Disney

Significant paradigm shift in the way you view your Blogging activity.  Regardless of what your topic is, you can do it better and more creatively.  You just need to define what you want to get out of it.

Successful authors are obsessed with a topic and have really figured out how they want to say what they want to say.  Voice without an obsession is a terrible thing - it's un-curated re-blogging.  So how do you use a platform like self-publishing?  Regardless of what your topic is, try to figure out how to be better about it than 80% of the world.

Must have a goal that is so far out of your reach - don't do everything.  If you do everything, you don't really do anything.  How are readers supposed to know if your content is for them if you're trying to reach out to everyone?  Who do you want to delight?

"On Writing" - Stephen King's book uses a term called 'ideal reader'.  This is the face you see behind your monitor when you are writing/creating.  By seeing this face, you can truly start to make things that you know will hit home and that you will be proud of.

SXSWi - let the indecision begin!!

I am incredibly fortunate to be sent to SXSWi again this year (thanks Schipul and Ed!!) and am, as always, having a heck of a time trying to pick out panels, parties and networking events.  But you know, this is a stupid awesome problem to have.

Where will you be?  What are you not-to-miss panels this year?  Please please ping me, I'd love to have a beer with you and geek out over the latest Twitter and Facebook apps :)

SXSWi 2009 - panel picking awesomeness!!!

So there is this magical place called SXSW ('south by southwest' for those whose brains have been inundated with acronyms and might have just spent 2 minutes trying to figure out what the 'x' stands for). It is a happy beautiful conference land in the middle of Austin, TX where geeks, film buffs and music junkies converge to change the world, make merry and generally rock it out.

Every year, throngs of hyperactive geeks (yes, like me) attend to soak in the knowledge sunshine, put faces to online names and engage in typical Austin-style debauchery.

But this year is exciting in another way - I might get to be be speakers and you can help make it happen!  The following bullets are my 2 panels up for vote and then please-please-please visit our Schipul SXSWi 2009 Panels of Interest page to check out some other super folks who would make marvellous presenters (your vote and comments are incredibly super-duper important):

• Heart your peeps - building your business from within:
  Your employees are your company's heart and soul – do they know how much you love them? Personal branding, kick ass training, quirky perks - our panelists will share ideas on how to improve the lives and brains of your greatest assets, giving you a strong competitive edge and a killer bottom line.
• Strategic PR for Social Media Geeks:
  Social Media hacks are ruining the PR profession. Lack of disclosure, lack of planning, lack of strategy. With untrained social media geeks attempting PR, the profession needs to demand ethical behavior. What is PR and how does research, strategic planning, implementation and evaluation relate in a Web 2.0 world?

My submissions are all to be panel-style, in that I will moderate a group of incredibly funny, knowledgeable and awesome people (like Ed Schipul, Jason McElweenie and Dan Keeney) as they tell their stories, provide useful Real World tips/tricks of the trade and tell me how beautiful I am provide actionable 'when you get outta' here, do this or else' kinda' stuff.

Also, there will probably be cupcakes involved somehow.  Because that is what I do.  So vote will you?  Hmmmmm??  SXSWi 2009 Panel Picker is closed at 11:59pm on August 29th.  That gives you 10 whole days to think of witty comments and to give 5 star virtual happiness points for these amazing panel submissions.

A handful of other panels that I have personally already voted for and encourage you to do the same (not a complete listing of course -- check out that Schipul SXSWi 2009 Interesting Panels page for that):

• Personal Branding for Profit (Ed Schipul)
• Social Media for NonProfit Rockstars (Ed Schipul)
• Women Engaging Tech: Ferocity Fuels the Phenomenal
  (Gwen Bell, Monica Danna, Laura Mayes and Tara Anderson)
• Is Your Company Blog Cheating On You (Jason McElweenie)
• My Life With NF in Web 2.0 ( Reggie Bibbs)
• Building a Tech Community in Flyover Country (Marc Nathan)

SxSWi 2008 was awesome (aka: pimping)

SXSW Interactive Festival 2008 was super, as always.  While the quality of panel content wasn't as consistent as I would've hoped, the people, events and general camaraderie  were outstanding.  As were the beer, wine, Nuclear Tacos and the 400 times we ate at Iron Cactus.  Also as were (if that even makes sense), the awesome fuzzy pimp hats and bling we indulged in for Ed Schipul's 'Pimp My NonProfit' panel.

I live blogged several panels and updated them this evening with photos, better descriptions and general grammatical edits so as not to appear a complete lame-o poster.  Specifically:

1.  Weird Turn Pro panel with Derek Powazek
2.  Henry Jenkins opening remarks
3. High-Tech Craft session moderated by Natalie Zee Drieu

Feel like you missed out?  Some ideas on getting your SXSWi 2008 fix: Flickr, Technorati,  re-visit Meebo chats or check out Pulse SXSW for video clips.

To all of the friendly new faces I came in contact with, you really made this a special weekend.  Thanks for the giggles, jokes, advice and brilliant ideas - I'm constantly inspired by every single one of you.

Find the above SXSWi 2008 mosaic in my Flickr stream here - also thanks to CC loving Flickr photogs techslut and wangjy!

High Tech Craftiness at SXSWi 2008

They blinded me with crafty geeky science!  A group of lady crafter fanatics chatted online technology and the role it plays in the ever-growing DIY community at SXSWi 2008.

I've heard various review on the panel, but it's funky and inquisitive nature really hit home with me.  Panelists brought in objects they've been working and a lots of super how-to resources for DIY/crafty typs everywhere.

Natalie Zee Drieu  Senior Editor,  CRAFT Magazine
Syuzi Pakhchyan SparkLab
Alison Lewis  Producer,  IHeartSwitch
Mouna Andraos Electronic Crafts
Diana Eng  Fashion Designer,  Diana Eng

Read on for cool projects the panelists brought to share and other awesome goodness.  Photo thanks to Natalie Zee's Flickr stream

Henry Jenkins chats participatory culture at SXSWi 2008

Before we go any further, I want you to take a second to click on the mindmap above.  Read it.  Love it.  Soak in the graphical sexiness and take a nice deep breath as you think about how bizarre your life would be if someone followed you around drawing every conversation you had.   

The mindmapping visual was created on the spot by Susan Bright at Henry Jenkins' and  Steven Johnson's opening remarks at SXSWi 2008.  It makes me very, very happy.  But I digress...

Henry Jenkins (MIT professor and one of the most articulate speakers ever) participated in an opening remark session with Steven Johnson (prolific author and founder of outside.in) discussing everything from collective intelligence to Harry Potter fan content creation to the plight of the 'pink collar worker'.

I have a few notes (read the full post), but honestly spent the majority of the discussion geeking out versus typing out.   It was super - you can read Henry's post on it or search Technorati for further details.

'Weird Turn Pro' Derek Powazek at SXSWi 2008

Derek Powazek (of Fray, Pixish and formerly JPEG mag) spoke at SXSWi 2008 on crowdsourcing and community building.  He's one of my favorite bloggers and speakers, as he consistently has some pretty amazing *actionable* thoughts and ideas on community interaction, cool shiznit and the world in general. 

I dig laidback modest brilliance, I really do.

The 'Weird Turn Pro' panel was a discussion of Average Joes moving up the content creation and community food chain via online tools and virtual congregational / collaborative spaces. 

Also, if you read my Blog, which you obviously do because you are in fact reading the words I am implanting into your retinas right now mwahaha, you'll get the Hunter S. Thompson reference ('When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro') and see yet another reason why I heart Derek's brain. 

Beyond the snappy panel title, it made me rather gleeful hearing Derek loosely reference his own personal 3 motivations of people - quite reminiscent of Ed Schipul's ongoing labor of love:  The 3 Motivations of People:  Material, Social and Ideological.  Simple framework for a really powerful look into promoting community participation and engagement.

Read on for my complete notes (all in bulleted live-blogging crazy form) of Derek's great SXSW panel. 
Derek photo thanks to Flickr user Norby