We are experiencing what some would call a “Revolution.”  Actually, what we are experiencing is an “Evolution” of extraordinary magnitude.  In order to understand were we are going, let’s begin by taking a quick look at where we’ve been.

The first half of the 20th century was an absolute disaster in human affairs.  A cataclysm.  We had the first world war, the great depression, the second world war and the rise of the communist nation.  Each one of these forces tore the world apart at the seams.  We also threw up barriers to human affairs which include:

• Political Barriers
• Trade Barriers
• Transportation Barriers
• Communication Barriers

These barriers divided people and nations.

The second half of the 20th century, we began to shift.  Shift away from the first 50 years.  It started with trade barriers.  We began to globalize the planet.  Cooperation and coordination of effort was extended across national boundaries.  Next came transportation barriers.  Technology and a more open playing field created access to logistics that were previously not possible.  With the fall of the Berlin wall, political barriers have fallen thru the floor.

This leads us to now — the 21st century.  For the first time in human history, growth has been extended to almost all regions of the world.  Take China for instance.  Since 1978, shortly after the death of Mao Zedong (1976), the growth rate of China has increased 10% year over year — every year.  No where in history have so many people been lifted out of poverty.  India is another example with 6% growth per year since 1990.  The reason is that the barriers that kept these countries in poverty (access to markets & logistics) no longer exist.  This has created a localized economy on a global scale.

Communication Barriers Overcome

The web did not cause this epic shift in global human affairs.  But the importance of it cannot be overlooked.  What was once only possible for governments and large corporations (communicate, collaborate and coordinate globally) is now easily done at the individual level — virtually free.  This has created an environment of what I like to call “global localization.”  There are no barriers to sharing data, publishing data, building relationships and creating a global network to coordinate effort.  It is an environment that has, and will continue to, turn the balance of commerce on its head.

Is Business 3.o too cliche?

Whatever you want to call it, we are coming full circle.  In the beginning, we participated in commerce at the local level.  You did business with the people you knew.  Business was done on a relationship level.  Then along came the automobile and communication devices.  By the time the television came along, we were all exposed to mass advertising and mass manufacturing.  The whole notion of “brand” was to develop a relationship with a product where we once relied on relationships with individuals.  Well here we are in the “relationship age.”  Where your ability to succeed has more to do with orchestrating effort thru your network or connections.  TV advertising, or advertising in general, is in a fluid state of disarray.  People want to do business with other people again — not brands.  The big will get smaller and the small get bigger.  Say goodbye to institutional friction.  We will witness the rise of the individual.  We’ve come full circle folks!

A World Without Barriers

So why do we call it a “Flat World?”  The world is being referred as a flat world, thanks to Tom Friedman’s book The World Is Flat. The world is now so well connected with the ubiquity of technology in all areas which gives you, me, all of us the power to collaborate, coordinate, produce and distribute seamlessly across borders, and cultural and language divides. In a flat world, everything of value is now connected — no more barriers.

Welcome To Our Flat World — The Good News

For connected individuals and forward-thinking corporations who are able to embrace change, there has never been a time where we’ve had more opportunity.  There is little need for the organizational system as we once knew it.  The power to create a global network to collaborate and coordinate effort is seamless and typical organizational structure just gets in the way of productivity.  If organizations are able to recognize this and embrace this, there can be little doubt that operational efficiencies can be extended exponentially.

Welcome To Our Flat World — The Bad News

In a flat world, there are connected individuals and disconnected individuals.  Unfortunately, this gap can only widen.  To date, there are about 1.2 billion connected individuals.  We are the conceptual and technical class.  Our opportunity holds no bounds.  However, for the disconnected individuals, there is a barrier being constructed.  Technology changes is changing so fast that it has the possibility to create another sad state of human affairs.  I am hopeful though.  With the ubiquity of technology, the speed at which it has spread in the last decade and the low cost of connectivity, I cannot image that we will not have a connected world — one where knowledge is freely shared, data is relational and accessible and where the human spirit and innovation can come together to solve many of the world’s problems (and, of course, create new ones).

So What’s Next?

Who knows.  But, we are all on this ride together — so let’s make it happen together.  This is my blog.  It’s about the new world of commerce, marketing and media.  It’s about the drastic shift we are all experiencing.  It’s about creativity, digital media, personal branding and social media.  It is about how to harness our power to create networks of individuals, engage and influence each other.  It’s about embracing this flat world we all live in — together.  I hope you’ll be here with me for the ride.

Next time you hear people talking about history repeating itself, I’m hoping you will think about this.  None of us remember the era when all commerce was localized — meaning, anyone you did business with lived in your immediate community.  There was no such thing as advertising, marketing channels and brands.  You did business with people you knew.  It was not an “information economy” and nothing was mass produced.  It was a Trust Economy.  So what am I talking about when I say that history repeats itself?   …welcome back to the Trust Economy.

When it comes to using social platforms to create awareness for your service, product or brand – you have to remember that this is not your typical marketing channel.  As consumers, we are weary of “marketing speak,” suspicious of “buzz” (it can be bought) and we don’t trust strangers.  We are back to square one.  In a Trust Economy, your market is your community or network, trust is mandatory and influence is king.

Return On Influence – The Basics

If you want to understand how to create trust and affect individuals authentically, imagine yourself moving into a new neighborhood.  You’ve just entered a new community.  So how do you meet people?  This is the exact construct social media platforms emulate.  Would you immediately start going door-to-door peddling your product or service to your neighbors?  I would hope the answer to that question is NO.  But over time, as your community gets to know you, the trust and reputation you have built will no doubt lead to talk about what you do.  So keep these things in mind:

• You can’t fake a relationship
• Relationships come before sales
• Business is not the first order of business
• Your personal brand comes first

Leveraging your relationships is a great way to increase awareness of your product, service or brand — but you actually have to become a respected and trusted member of your community and nurture your own network before you can tap into it’s potential.

Work Life Integration

So I just mentioned that your personal brand comes first.  For organizations, this logic will seem counter-intuitive and will require understanding of the social construct.  However, no matter how you look at it, the lines between our work and our social life are blurring.  For example – childhood friends are now being reconnected thru facebook and becoming business associates.  Business are invading facebook like a pack of 4 yr. olds will invade a Chuck-E-Cheese.  Corporate recruiters are sourcing talent from LinkedIn, Twitter and even MySpace.  In the end, interactions are interpersonal – people do business with people (not brands) and the economic environment we once knew is systematically being turned on it’s head (Judy Martin got me thinking about this).

Personal Interactions = Network ROI

So here we are back in a Trust Economy except our localized market is now global.  Thru the ubiquity of technology, we are able to have rich, personal interactions and find meaningful connections with others.  As always, when it comes to relationships, you get back more than you give.  First and foremost, we are creatures here to serve one another.  It’s a tried and true principle that is undeniable.  We just have more tools to serve each other more effectively and more efficiently.

Attention = Currency

One of the most rare things on earth is a person’s attention.  Between email, 30,000 ad messages a day and life in general, our time is our most precious commodity.  We have become masters at filtering out anything that is not meaningful to us NOW.  So go out and join the conversation.  Listen to people.  Answer their questions.  Be of service without regard and be meaningful to people NOW.

Authentic Influence

Let people get to know you, trust you and befriend you.  You will create meaningful relationships that get integrated socially and professionally.  The more you give, the more you get.  Relationships are back.  We are built to affect and influence one another.  Your interests will become social objects and awareness of them will radiate thru your network.  These authentic alliances are what all relationships are built on.  This is not something you can fake.  It’s something you must embrace.

Viral marketing is an epidemiological metaphor for how ideas get spread in a connected world.  As marketers, we strive to create pandemics to “affect” people instead of “infect” people.  The increasing prominence of the social web provides many ways to effectively scale and spread our messages and ideas in much the same way we fear swine flu could have global implications.  You’re most likely already aware of the immense potential on the internet for your company and your brand, but it’s likely that you aren’t sure how to tap into it. You hear buzzwords like viral marketing, social marketing, buzz marketing, viral videos, consumer engagement, and destination websites, but these words do little to provide the perspective you need to formulate an approach.

Whether we are discussing the Swine Flu (to infect) or Susan Boyle (to affect), the math around network nodes and network effectiveness gives us new perspective as to how the diffusion of ideas occurs.  We live in exponential times and hopefully this will explain it and add some new perspective.  Here’s how to think about the diffusion of ideas and infectious disease.

Network Effect: Public Events vs. Social Computing

The swine flu spread from Mexico into the US via infected carriers of the virus.  Containment efforts centered around closing of public meeting places and putting travel restrictions on the airlines.  Public meeting places and airports are “network nodes” in this situation.  Infected people come into contact with others who then go to other “nodes” infecting others.  Here you have an exponential diffusion of the virus creating the possibility of a pandemic with no borders and global implications.

Susan Boyle’s phenomenal video performance spread from a television show which affected a couple of million people.  These people became affected carriers of the performance.  The video got uploaded to YouTube, a “social network node.”  Affected carriers spread it to their own “personal network nodes.”  Here, there are no containment efforts occurring.  Affected people come into contact with others.  Personal influence with others fuels it’s spread.  There are no barriers to creating a global pandemic to all connected people (approx. 1.2 billion people on the planet).

Empiric Laws Create Exponential Viral Effectiveness

So what does the environment look like for marketers and how can we model possible outcomes to be more effective in choosing social channels and target nodes?  Let’s review 3 right now.

Sarnoff’s Law

Sarnoff’s law is what traditional marketers generally consider when calculating reach.  It is a linear, mono logic communication path that is the least effective model to consider when trying to go viral.  If we look at how the swine flu spreads here, imagine that there are 4 people in a room where nobody leaves – ever.  This is completly contained environment for an infectious disease.  Nothing to worry about here folks

Metcalf’s Law

Metcalf’s law describes how the web diffused ideas in the 1990’s -  Yahoo Classifieds, Email, etc.  It describes how peers connect one-on-one in an environment where many others do as well.  While diffusion occurs, it is not a viable construct for creating pandemics.  The CDC would consider this a localized swine flu outbreak.  No need to panic.  It would still be relatively easy to contain.  Susan Boyle does not have much of a chance here either.

Reed’s Law

Reed’s law helps us understand the environment where people can create groups.  This exponential law creates increasing returns as the scale increases, which has surprisingly effective spread of results with regard to viral diffusion.  Let’s runs some numbers.

N=100

When we look at what happens if we make N=100 (a small number when you think about it in global terms) in each of the 3 scenarios, here’s what we come up with:

Now we understand the math behind diffusion in a connected world.  Small numbers become big numbers without regard to constraints.

Convergence Of Everything

In the case of Susan Boyle, as well as the spread of the swine flu, each one of these diffusion mechanisms are in place.  This, to me, suggests that traditional marketing principles still play an important part of the viral marketing mix.  For traditional marketers, it helps to understand the new dynamics we all work in and keep an open mind about how things continue to progress moving forward.  Just as viral diffusion occurs, these principles apply to all communication, collaboration and coordination activities.  We really are living in exponential times folks.  It’s gonna be a crazy ride.  I guarantee it!

Do You Deliver A Superior Customer Experience?

The answer would be NO.  Chances are your company is NOT delivering a superior customer experience.  So is this what’s important about social media?  The answer is… Partially. 

Now take a moment to consider just what comes between a traditional institution or organization and its customers.  You have a business with all the internal barriers that exists in all companies.  Now you have traditional media to communicate with your customers.  You rely on interruptions and disruptions to message to your clients and potential customers.

Is it any wonder businesses are disconnected from their customers and their experiences?

So What The Hell Does This Have To Do With Social Media?

Social media, or let’s say the platforms created to support it, have created a slight paradigm shift (well maybe a bit more than slight).  In order to understand the enormity of this shift, you have to start looking at this phenomena a little differently — from a holistic point of view.  This new dynamic has created an environment where communication, collaboration and coordination exist without barriers.  It gives power to individuals to compete with institutions at a level unprecedented.  Institutional containment as we know it does not exist.  Market barriers no longer exist as we know it.  Let’s think about social media thru another lens.  Let’s look at it around “coordinating effort” or, from the basis any institution is created which is, getting things done:

This Is What’s Important About Social Media

Institutions and organizations are wondering what to do about social media.  Policies are being written, consultants are being brought in to figure out how it can be used as a marketing channel.  Companies are missing what’s really important about social media and the platforms that support it — and here it is.

Cooperation cost is the economic burden of coordinating effort.  Traditionally, the solution for coordinating effort was to create an institution.  More recently, since the cost for people to communicate with each other has fallen thru the floor, many are rethinking the system in which people communicate, collaborate and coordinate.  A great example of this is found on social networking platforms — platforms where coordination and communication are designed into the system.  Systems that allow group output without regard to traditional institutional models.

Looking At Things In New Ways Is Hard To Do

So what does this mean for the traditional institutional model?  It means that business leaders have to get comfortable with reviewing something very core — their original purpose — their existence.  In the end, I really think there are only 2 choices:

1. Embrace and leverage communication, collaboration and coordination platforms.  Institutions and individuals alike all have access to a world of new opportunities.  This is difficult because it requires us to forget what we think we know and look at our circumstance dispassionatly and objectively.  It will also require us all to get involved and learn.  You can’t fake this
2. Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance.  You might make the connection to the Kübler-Ross model’s 5 discrete stages of how people come to terms with dying.  This is how many institutions and organizations will come to terms with these new, communication, collaboration and coordination platforms.

So here we are.  This is happening.  The ultimate importance of the web is coming to fruition.  It’s the ultimate communication platform.  It gives institutions the power to outdistance their competition by breaking down communication barriers between their employees, their customers and their suppliers.  We all have the power to create personal networks to coordinate effort and accomplish anything.  Thomas Friedman said “what can be done, will be done.”  There is nothing standing in our way.  Let’s get busy getting things done

It is said that a typical American is exposed to 30,000 advertising messages a day.  I found that hard to believe when I first heard this but then I just looked around and thought about this for a moment.  Why don’t you think about this for a moment.  Imagine your drive to work – billboards, commercials on the radio, how about logos on cars and trucks.  Now think about your day at work – banner ads, logos on shirts, your computer, your telephone.  Now that you think about it, you can start to imagine this notion of 30,000 ad messages a day.  Now how many did you notice?  How many can you remember?  How many of these ad messages influenced you in any way?  This is called “ad blindness” and we are getting very good at filtering this stuff out as consumers.

Interruption Marketing

Interruption marketing is the process of finding a prospect engaged in something else, like reading a magazine, watching television, watching a game, driving to work and interrupting him/her with a commercial message. To do that “creativity” in its conventional form is a huge asset albeit rare.  In citing the example above, if you are not influenced or affected any one of the 30,000 ad messages a day, how is it that companies keep doing the same thing hoping for a different result.  That’s insanity.  It’s also a crap-shoot.  It’s a matter of broadcasting loud to as many people as possible and hope it trickles down to a potential buyer.

As you can see, it’s not very effective.  For many companies, their solution is to fight clutter with even more clutter.  Target audiences, no matter how well segmented, have learned to filter out and ignore the noise.  This is a fact.

Engagement Marketing

The digital space is about engaging in a conversation with peers, customers and staff, innovating with them and constantly improving your value proposition in an authentic way. Customers have the power, the information, the advice and the resources to make their own decisions, in the digital world its about entering the conversation.  It’s about transparency and allowing consumers to participate and shape your brand based on authentic interactions between your employees, product or service and your customers.  It also turns the traditional marketing paradigm on its head — using the interaction with one to spread “affect and influence” thru their personal network.

It’s about becoming involved.  It’s about allowing your customers to shape your brand and shape the future experiences you deliver to your customers.  It’s about human connection and relationships again — not a manufactured identity of the traditional brand.

Shaping Our Conversation

These are the types of subjects I will continue to explore with you as this blog evolves.  We will look at how our connected society has turned traditional notions of marketing, supply chains, and the economy at large on it’s head; and we’re just beginning on this quest.  This quest is a gloabal one that will affect us all in both positive and negative ways.

There continues to be mass-adoption of social media as a way to build brands (both personal and corporate), communicate, collaborate and coordinate in a social network architecture.  Today we are going to talk about the big guys:  Midsize to Enterprise.  It is undeniable that this has, and will, continue the way we work and share information.  This paradigm has completely altered the way customers relate to brands and the way that corporate brand managers should operate.

Social Media Is Not Your Typical Marketing Channel

So to begin with, let’s separate the notion of buying adspace in social networks from using the space in it’s intended function.  Yes, you traditional marketers can buy adspace and talk about all the “eyeballs” that your corporate brand was exposed to.  You can use this KPI to show a good ROI.  You may even get kudos for this due to the lack of understanding of the space.  However, this is not “participating” in social media.  The real ROI a corporate marketer can realize comes from developing communities, creating content, listening and talking directly with their customers.  In short, it’s not about “eyeballs” or ad buys.  It’s about driving direct interaction between your employees and your customers.  It’s about creating an open forum for your subject matter expertise to shine with visibility to all.  This is a hard thing for many companies to embrace.  But the ones that do and do so fearlessly are the ones who win.

Institutional Silos Will Work Against You

One of the difficult hurdles companies have to overcome almost before they even get started in social media is the traditional silo’d structure of the institution.  Social media overlaps vertical silos in a horizontal fashion.  For instance, where do you put it?  It’s part marketing, part sales.  It’s part content creation, PR and communications.  It’s part IT, web development and design.  So what this means is, right from the beginning, nobody knows where to “put” it.  To get past this, some companies will have to completely rethink and reinvent (which is coming sooner or later anyways).  For CEOs and business owners, think about this: You didn’t start your company without taking ‘bold actions’ to carve out your niche or competitive advantage.  It’s time to put that early entrepreneur hat back on, get involved and reinvent.  Really, it’s an opportunity to get back to your passion if you choose to embrace it that way.

No Matter What Your Market, Your Audience Is Global

If you are a regional or even a national company, you now have a global audience.  This again is generally a hurdle that the successful big brands have fearlessly embraced.  However, in a world where there are plenty of “causes for concern,” this is another roadblock that many companies have a hard time getting comfortable with.  Also, most marketing, sales and PR department objectives are structured either locally, regionally or nationally.  So again, concerns will arise as to who gets “credit” and how do you keep “Arizona” reps from stealing your “Texas” reps’ territory.  Another mindshift to embrace but the upside could be boundless.

Gotta Get Past The Quarterly Goal And Look Long-Term

Social media is not a “marketing campaign” but a long-term endeavor.  When it comes to getting involved, building a network, and getting your audience engaged, expecting big results the first quarter you initiate your effort is just not realistic.  There’s also another mindshift that generally needs to occur at the organizational level.  Most PR, communication, sales and marketing departments operate on short timelines and are looking for quick results.  This is just another example of where the management has to get comfortable embracing something new.

Change Is Hard

I have a theory.  The theory goes like this.  We are all indifferent unless we are inspired or desperate.  When you think about how fundamental shifts happen they are generally surrounded by a period of chaos.  In this current shift (the shift to doing business in a flat world), some people and companies will embrace what’s next.  We’ve all said this; “If I knew what I know now back then….”  So now I’ll ask the same question that I asked myself:  “Knowing what I know now, what am I doing to day to be prepared for when…”  Hopefully that makes sense to more people than just me

Stay tuned folks.  I’m working very hard to bring all this full-circle so we have a holistic lens to look at these changes and hopefully (you and I) will have a better perspective to deal with the surrounding chaos of this economic evolution.

It is important to work to understand as many of the working pieces in your craft but true genesis lies beyond words and true creativity is creating something where there is not.  Nobody can tell you where your own success lies and you won’t find success in the place it is not.  There’s a Japanese proverb that says “The Reverse Side Also Has A Reverse Side.”  These words mixed with Buddha’s last – “Conditioned things are perishable; with vigilance strive to succeed” have inspired the notion behind this post as I relate them to myself, creativity and the things I pragmatically work thru on a daily basis.  So let’s step back and dispel some conventional thinking first.

Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. “Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall–they are the real distorting prisms of human nature.” Chief among them: “Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature.” What he was getting at is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat themselves.  So if that sounds interesting, then let’s explore that for a moment, shall we?

Predictive Models Are Overrated

Have you ever taken some time to consider that in marketing, advertising and business in general (or government for that matter), there is an enormous amount of time, money and resource spent on prediction.  There is a power law distribution for every PowerPoint and every occasion. As humans, our brains are wired for linear instead of exponential outcomes or statistical uncertainties.    We end up looking for simple stories to tell ourselves that explain the complex things we don’t–and, most importantly, can’t know.

Accept That Order Is A Short-Lived Illusion

The flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas.  You’ve probably heard of “The Butterfly Effect.”  The whole notion is that we live in a “dynamical system” where small variations of “initial conditions” can create huge variance in the long-term behavior of that system.  In fewer words, there is no way of knowing the affect of a single action due to the infinite variations and unintended consequences of the re-action in an environment where change is constant.

Personally, I believe that we are all part of a system where if we were in a position to know the state and flux of all variables including the infinite number of changing variables that occur every split second and how those variables affect the corresponding infinite variables that there is a predictive model that has no differential equations and works to a reliable certainty.  Unfortunately for all of us this falls in the category of “Divine Providence.”

So how do we create order in a such a complex world?  Forget about it.   I’m up for a different approach, how about you?  To me, the tension is prediction vs preparedness where success lies in preparing for and embracing uncertainty.

You Must Have Chaos Within You To Give Birth To A Dancing Star

That was written by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche.  Nietzsche loved to dance.  He believed that dance was the most genuine expression of the soul; our souls being as complex of an environment as the universe itself.  What I take this to mean is that success, creativity and happiness itself is more about embracing the unknown than making calculated and deliberate actions toward a preconceived outcome.  I think this is his way of defining “the passion quotient” that virtually every writer of success points to as it’s basis.  Find what makes you happy and you will find where your creativity and pathway to success is.  Embrace your “self” and have faith in the uncertain.  It kinda goes hand-n-hand.  Passion and faith in your passion is the foundational piece to overcoming any obstacle life throws at you.  So now that we’ve “Embraced Chaos” and found our passion, how do we pragmatically conquer our uncertain world.

Passion Breeds Preparedness

So maybe you have found your passion.  Maybe you, like me, were told as a child “you can be anything you want to be (or do anything you want to do) when you grow up.”  A more correct answer is “you can do anything you are PREPARED to do.” It was Thomas Edison who said “Genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”  Passion goes a LONG way.  However, in Edison’s case, it was only 1 percent of the equation.  Now I don’t necessarily agree with his equation but his point is valid.  My equation, especially in today’s ever-changing and complex world, is a little different.

Preparedness Breeds Awareness And Opportunity

I have talked with many extraordinary and successful people.  When asked, pretty much every one of them told me that the events that made the most profound difference in their success were not created by their will to succeed but by being in the right place, at the right time, with the right tools and the right domain expertise — domain expertise developed thru passion, awareness and preparation.  In other words, any amount of pontificating or previous research could not have created or foretold of the opportunities that actually made a difference in almost all the cases I’ve come across.  Success is about stumbling on the right opportunity at the right time with the right skillset and the right perspective to notice it.

Being prepared in a chaotic world to deal with complexity to create and facilitate value is the key.  So luck DOES have a LOT to do with it.  But you don’t get lucky sitting on the couch – no matter how much talent you have; which brings us to the next rivalry….

You Can’t Rely On Talent

I just got thru reading Malcom Gladwell’s latest book Outliers: The Story of Success.  One chapter is devoted to time.  Time & practice being the great equalizer.  Time spent practicing or in “preparation.”  It’s about the notion that; no matter how talented you are on day one, after 10,000 hours of practice, the talent you had or did not have on day one becomes virtually irrelevant.  Take Tiger Woods.  He had an obvious talent for golf at an extraordinarily young age.  Where do you think we would be if Tiger wasn’t just as legendary in his work ethic and didn’t put in years and years and years of practice?  We would have never heard of Tiger Woods.  So what is it that can take a talented child and drive them to become the best of the best?  It still comes down to preparation.  There are golfers out there, who never had the God given talent Tiger had that are competitive and in many times, surpasses him in the sport.  Preparation overcomes all.

Don’t I Blog About Digital Media, Interactive Marketing & Flat World Implications?

I wrote this post because I have been working on building an extraordinary team.  There has been a lot of discussion on what type of people to look for when it comes to building products in the digital space.  I want to work with people who are creative and do not need to be managed.  People who, as a group, can be pointed in a direction and succeed; more times than not.  In today’s flat world, any less won’t cut it.  So yeah.. I do blog about digital media, interactive marketing & flat world implications

Innovation refers to incremental, radical, and/or revolutionary change.  Change in thinking, products, processes, and/or institutions & organizations.   It’s fueled by creative people on an unending journey to make things faster, smaller, cheaper, cleaner, simpler; people who put their heart and soul into their craft without regard.  Institutions or organizations are deliberately and intentionally created by people.  The development of functional institutions in society in general may be regarded as an instance of emergence; meaning, institutions arise, develop and function in a pattern of social self-organization, which goes beyond the conscious intentions of the individual humans involved.  It is the mechanical and traditional way effort is coordinated.

We live in exponential times.  Innovation grows in an exponential manner.  It’s not linear.  We think and intuit in a linear fashion.  For example, if you walk 30 steps linearly (1,2,3…. 30) you’ve taken 30 steps.  If you take 30 steps exponentially (2,4 8 16…. ) you get to a billion.  Quite a difference, no?  So if we live in exponential times, what’s the future hold for innovation as well as institutional organization?  Again, if we are to look ahead, we need to look to the past for some perspective.

Why Create An Institution?

How do we get anything done – traditionally speaking?  If you want to coordinate the work of a group of people, you start an institution.  You raise capital, develop resources in order to coordinate effort; basically, you start a company.  The company can be private or public.  So thinking of a company as an institution, you use the charter of this institution to coordinate the effort needed to create output.  What we are talking about are coordination costs.  As part of creating an institution in order to coordinate effort, part of that coordination costs includes the collaboration and innovation required to re-invent and stay relevant in your market.

Institutional Extinction?

We’ve seen the imploding of institutional imperatives coming to fruition for awhile.  I believe there is more to this than what this post is addressing (such as institutional anonymity leads to moral ambiguity).

Institutional failures are happening all around us.  In a nutshell, there is no faith in our government institutions, financial institutions, educational institutions or our corporate institutions.  The net outcome creates an environment ripe for solutions.  Small grass-roots solutions that have the ability to spread globally in seconds, take root in weeks and evolve tangentially into real organic solutions devoid of institutional friction or myopic disconnects.  There is also a pattern of indifference until it’s too late which reminds me of a great quote:

“Every CEO will at least give lip service to the idea that the world is moving faster and that we need to do a better job at innovation. But if you go into an organization and ask people to describe their innovation system, you get blank looks.  They have none.”
– Gary Hamel

“Built To Last” Doesn’t Mean What It Once Did

The problem with the traditional institutional model more relevant to this post is that it is outdated.  The fundamental requirement for innovation is communication.  Communication between the “creative people on an unending journey to make things faster, smaller, cheaper, cleaner, simpler.“  Another problem is, this model is not well suited for the “people who put their heart and soul into their craft without regard.”  There is institutional friction that is unavoidable and deflating to the best and the brightest.  Don’t believe me?  Look at what’s has been happening over the past 80 years.  You cannot help but notice the lifespan of an average institution is falling thru the floor.

This graph is powerful, no?  Notice how the market corrections are a big driver.  So why else do you think this is happening?  You agree that we live in exponential times, right?  Well if we live in exponential times, then the speed at which we need to adapt, relearn, change or in essence, Innovate, doubles every year or two.  Larger institutions, by their very nature, are incapable to respond.  Consider that in many cases that takes at least one or two years to recognize there is a problem to even begin to solve it.  By the time many of them solve it; well guess what.  They’re stuck solving a problem that is now irrelevant and distracting them from solving the new issues at hand.

The Lack Of Institutional Effectiveness & Agility

What else has happened during this timeline?  Think about the methods and means at which we are able to communicate.  Telegraph, Telephone, Travel, Logistics, Radio, Television and now cram all of the affect of those communication tools into the internet and you have increased the effectiveness and cut the cost by almost a trillion.  There is “Flat World Coordination” that has real potential to allow smaller companies to better serve the larger’s customer base at a fraction of the cost while adding more product and/or service value.  It’s this “Flat World Orchestration” that is changing the competitive landscape for the larger institutions.

Are You Saying That Institutions As We Know Them Are Dead?

Successful ones as they traditionally operate?  Yes.  I am saying that in shorter and shorter lifespans become… dead (hence the above graph).  Traditional institutions will survive and thrive when management, board members and/or shareholders are able to step out of the “what we did yesterday will work for us tomorrow” mentality.  In order to survive for the longterm, one has to recognize that the things that got you where you are will not get you where you optimally should be.  I was asked by a mid-market CEO recently about what are the most important things to understand in order to adapt and compete.  I came up with 6 that I feel are undeniable and universal:

• Institutions Are Inherently Exclusionary – Solve This
• Your Best Ideas Aren’t Necessarily Your Own – Accept This
• Innovation Is Now A Global Collaborative – Leverage This
• The Tools Of Innovation Are Ubiquitous – Believe This
• Combine The Best Talent And Tools Without Institutional Regard – Break Down Silos
• Your Best Agent Of Change Is Probably Already Working For You – Forget Consultants

Embrace This Paradigm And You Will Stumble On Bigger And Better Opportunities.  Plan, Do, Study, Act… Repeat.  So what else is happening in market corrections?

Small Will Be More Influential And More Plentiful

So stepping back a bit, what are the type of companies that are winning in this environment?  In 2 words, Small Business.  What to you think the net outcome of layoffs from the financial mess?  It will be more small business who are more capable to adapt and who will drive us out of our current situation.   Look in the troughs in the above graph that represent market corrections.  People are still working, more and more companies are being created.  Every correction leads to wider acceptance of newer innovations and knowledge that people take from their corporate institutional jobs they lost to their new ventures as business owners.  The other paradigm is the concept I put out as “The Rise Of The Individual In A Flat World.”  There is a great book that will describe this phenomena better than I called Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself.

There is a huge upswell of activity and opportunity for entrepreneurial groups and individuals who find themselves either inspired to and/or laid off and in a different predicament due to mass layoffs.  As history begins to repeat itself, this is the best time to find your niche and create now and competitive value.  Small business activity flourishes in economic downturns and it has every single time there has been one.  So if you are recently laid off or are worried you might be.  Start taking some bold actions toward finding what you can put your heart and soul into without regard.  Rest knowing that there is no better time to be an entrepreneur.  Small IS your competitive advantage.

Before I get started on this post let me make one thing absolutely clear.  I am a DATA JUNKIE.  My job is to develop digital products, online destinations and engagement campaigns using the latest behavioral scoring technology available; technology that allows one to gather primary data on the audience that is interacting with the products.  Lately, I have really had a hard time embracing granular segmentation strategies especially around B2B and product development.  I mean, who are we talking to anyways?  Glass buildings and steel infrastructures or is there a better way to approach this?  The notion that consumers or, for simplicity sake, HUMANS are not the collective influence of a corporation and its day to day decision makers makes traditional B2B marketing a flawed construct that should be re-examined.  Well this got me thinking even deeper… or shallower for that matter.  Let me start by discussing the problem as I see it.  We’ll get to a new approach I am pursuing just a bit later in the post.

The DemoEduSocioEthnicIndustrial Complex

The tools available for measuring the likes and dislikes of different people, segmentation against an infinite number of variables — they are amazing.  It’s where a lot of people start when developing messages for different groups of their customer base or defining attributes to build into their products.  I’ve used them all and they are interesting.  However, for small to medium sized businesses, they are generally useless.  They do not take the place of a creatively designed product.  I’ve all but quit using them.  You may ask, “why in the hell would you quit relying on these amazing tools?”

So here goes my answer… Marketers have, as a group, bought off on the “group-think” notion of what I am calling the DemoEduSocioEthnicIndustrial Complex.  Consultants all use the same Demographic Segmentation Tools,  and PRIZM NE segments (secondary marketing data) that include catchy names like Young Digerati, Fast-Track Families, The Cosmopolitans, Old Milltowns, and Multi-Culti Mosaics – when it comes to consumer product & marketing research.

The problem is, many of these tools are, in my opinion, used on the frontend of a project as a basis for product, positioning and messaging.  So let’s take a moment and think about this; if everybody is making decisions about the same things, using the same data, what are the implications?

Average Products For Average People And Average (at best) Results

If pretty much all marketing consultants use pretty much the same secondary data as part of their decision methodology (and marrying that up to whatever primary data their clients have which is typically horribly lacking), how are companies to break out from the pack and make an impact – either from a product development, usability or messaging standpoint?

DemoEduSocioEthnicIndustrial Complex Data Creates More Questions Than They Answer

Don’t get me wrong!  The information provided by these reports are often fascinating and EXTREMELY useful in situations when you already have a strong understanding of your market and a foundatation of PRIMARY DATA on your customers.  With a strong foundation or insight on your market/product/customers — the data is helpful when taking existing primary data and taking business to a new level.  In the other case, where primary data is not available (and in many situations where primary data IS available), these tools are so ambiguous that they raise more questions than they answer (which make it GREAT for consultants wanting to charge $$ to answer them) and in general, sidetracks a project from a time perspective.  Most of the time, you end up right back where you were when you began the exercise.

No Neilson, comScore, PRIZM, Hitwise Or High Dollar Marketing Consultant? How Are We To Connect With Our Audience?

Let’s remember that no tool can replace the foundational creative work of coming up with ideas based on principle.  So without “Industry-Leading” demographic measurement tools, consultants that live in the theoretical and naive corporate managers (managers who sincerely want to do the best job possible), how are we to connect with our audience.  For me personally, I’m starting to look at human interactions in their most basic forms.   Instead of the billions of variables each 66 PRIZM Lifestyle Group segmented by their use on the web, socio-economic status, age, relationship status, race, education and geographic connections, I am looking to find a much more finite way to get to a better place of understanding (in less time), with broader coverage, less room for ambiguity and universal relevance.  So here is where I’m going with this.

So How Do We Start To Master Our Similarities?

To get started developing your own perspective of mastering similarities, I have put together a very small list of some of the books I have read that have shaped and lead to my view on the matter.  I buy off on the notion of behavioral economics and there being an internal wiring that we all share.  Instead of trying to explain what I mean, I’ve put together some reading that helped be get there.  This is the smallest sampling I could put together and you can’t just read one and walk away with the framework from which I work.  I would also suggest you read these in order.

First Things First; Everything Is Connected

Stay with me here folks.  Some numbers are rational such as the number 2.  Others are “irrational” such as PI (3.1415926535897932384…) and even more so, PHI (1.618033988749895…).  The part that is interesting is that these irrational numbers, particularly Phi, when “visually” represented display a precise geometric relationship that turns out to be ubiquitous in the universe.  It is this “Ubiquity” of forms that are constant in the universe that lead to the notion of Systems Theory.  The basic idea of system theory is that all things in the universe (people, bugs, galaxies and thoughts) can be viewed as discrete systems, operating under a defined set of rules. While the systems may be different, they exhibit strikingly similar behavior.

There are underlying rules that dictate the formation of these shapes:

• Phi:  x2 – x – 1 = 0
• Golden Ratio / Angle: 137.5 degrees

If different systems behave similarly, perhaps it’s because they are connected.  The fact a simple underlying rule can re-create so much of what is found in nature, suggests these underlying rules govern how everything works.

There different vantage points marketers approach design, positioning and messaging.

From A Micro Perspective:

From a micro perspective we all have our separate realities as individuals.  Marketers create separate messaging, separate packaging and separate products just to reach individual groups based on their separate preferences.  To me, this is high-effort, low-reward and non-sustainable (unless you have enormous pockets and are extremely lucky).  I do believe there is value in search for high-level answers here but only to find similarities at the beginning of the creative process.

From A Macro Perspective:

From this distance, there is not a measurable difference between us.  We are a singular unit of thought.  This is kinda where I prefer to begin the creative process.  My opinion is that most marketers cannot see the forest because they’re stuck up in a tree.  If anything, I need people to bring me back to the forest because I’m up on Mars somewhere.  However, this is my creative process.  Maybe this will help you define your creative process, maybe not.  There are many different perspectives and many universal truths.  Where these overlap is where the magic happens.

Marketing From A Collective Perspective Of “Coherent Ubiquity”

Coherent Ubiquity is the name I came up with to define a heuristic, creative approach to product, design and messaging — all based on studying the underlying traits that we all have as humans and the factors that motivate and affect us all.  If you would like an example of a product with a universally coherent marketing message and ubiquitous design, look at Apple.  The Mac, Iphone, Ipod and every accessory they make is designed to have ubiquitous appeal.  Now I don’t have any inside information about how Apple got to their current state of design, but I would venture to say they took a heuristic approach over the last 25 years or so to get where they are today.  Heuristic meaning “a scientific approach to trial & error” in this case.  Coherent Ubiquity is an heuristic or iterative approach to creating, designing and messaging products based on universal human appeal.  It’s a design approach that I methodically followed but did not have a name for until recently.  Let me try to put it all into perspective in a different way…

Don’t Ideate Based On Our Differences, Let’s Master Our Similarities

So how does one learn to “master our similarities?”  For me, it’s an ongoing process but one that really is steeped in psychology as opposed to marketing.  Everyone is typically familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  This is how we are all wired.  But before we go any further, let’s go just a little bit deeper.

The first book, an oldie (by today’s standards) is Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (Collins Business Essentials).  In this book, Cialdini (the author) introduces you to six principles of ethical persuasion: reciprocity, scarcity, liking, authority, social proof, and commitment/consistency.  It’s a facinating read and it changed the way I view almost everything in marketing.  Then there are the masters of primary data.  Fallon, the agency that I respect above almost all, wrote a book – Juicing the Orange: How to Turn Creativity into a Powerful Business Advantage.  Of all the books I’ve read on the subject, this one gives the best perspective around putting primary data into creative actions (they call it “connection planning”).  Finding the similiarities your customers all share and creating value around the results.

Finally, there are 2 other books that provide  perspective as to how we all make ubiquitous decisions as individuals.  The first one, The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making, highlights a slew of predictable human bias flaws what we feel is our own objective judgment.  And one I just finished reading – Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions – It’s a concise summary of why today’s social science increasingly treats the markets-know-best model as a fairy tale….he and his fellow social scientists want to replace the “rational economic man” model with one that more accurately describes the real laws that drive human choices.

The sum of these books will give you a foundational perspective to come at developing any type of product design, marketing and messaging base on the non-unique factors we all inherit at the moment of conception as well as work with our individual environmental influences thru the gathering of primary, qualitative data.  In my opinion, this approach has produced much more success in projects than coming at it from the other approach (the one’s I’ve been involved in anyways).  So what would you call this methodology?  I put a lot of thought around it and here’s what I came up with….

If this still sound a bit “incoherent,” keep in mind that I am still chasing this theory.  But, it has been influencing the way I approach things for the last few years.  I’m not sure if any of us are really meant to understand exactly how we all connect, think, influence, construct and view the world as one.  To me, Apple comes closest in developing universal products on universal ergonomics with universal messaging.  Google does this well too.  This is where I would like to think I’m working toward.  Either way, life’s a journey, not a destination.  I’ll keep you posted as I keep modifying this crack-pot theory of mine.