Creative Briefing

The Social Network -- See it with a friend: preferably a live one.

2010-10-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Has this film already come and gone? Kim and I got to see it at the Destinta last night ... a discount theater without the discount prices. There was one other couple. Granted, it was as Monday night and everyone else was home conversing with virtual friends. A nearly deserted live space provided the perfect atmosphere for this morality tale about loneliness at the top and bottom of the online relationship juggernaut that is Facebook. This could have been 'Risky Business II' but for a brilliant script, deft directing, and serious elements of Faust, Citizen Kane and Das Rheingold/Lord of the Rings. Troll-like genius Mark Zuckerberg, spurned in love (not for being a nerd, but for being ... an asshole! as his girlfriend tells him in the opening scene), hammers his fury and loneliness into brilliant, shining, all-powerful software that enslaves the world, destroying him and his friendships in the process. Sorkin's script is full of drive-by geek-speak delivered in wonderful Mamet-like staccato. It irritates and illuminates at once. Great performances from Jesse Eisenberg (Zuckerberg), Justin Timberlake (a creepy and evil Napsterish Sean Parker) and (my favorite) Armie Hammer as the impossibly noble, Wagnerian Winklevoss twins. Here's a proper and brilliant review, if you need one. Otherwise, just go. You know you can't resist.

Remember your first library? Remember snapping turtles?

2010-10-02T08:13:00.000-07:00

My first snapping turtle book.

I once read that writing is theft. Surely much of it is just that; but even more of it is borrowing. We borrow our ideas from what we overhear and observe, what we read, the scent on the breeze, a notion that we get from walking through a new and different place. Then we return them.

The notions of theft and borrowing occurred to me this morning as I stood in my local library, in the magazine section, literally surrounded by a riot of points of view. What do the Muslims think about Christian terrorism, the Crusades and the Inquisition? They're still pissed, and it's right there in Muslim Sunrise. What do Hindus think about? Statues and a bath in the Holy River -- you can see the photos in Hinduism Today, on a shelf a safe distance away from the Muslims. Did you know the National Review this month is caricaturing the Shepard Fairey Obama "Hope" poster by replacing Obama's face with Jimmy Carter's? Fiendishly and frightfully clever.

It's all at arm's reach.

What's a middle-aged man like me doing in the magazine section of the Mt. Lebanon Public Library on a crisp, sunny October Saturday morning, instead of wolfing down pancakes at Pamela's or biking the singletrack of South Park? I was actually trying to stock up on literature for a two-week vacation. My quarry was Daniel Okrent's book about Prohibition, Last Call. Long gone in my life are the days when it was easier to buy books than it was to read them. Two kids in college and a freelancer's salary have gently led me to rediscover the wonder of borrowing ideas ... and then returning them so that someone else can borrow them as well, free of charge.

The Mt. Lebanon Library displays its books enticingly, on carousels and vertical shelves, almost like a museum. How long will it be before it actually becomes a museum? With all three copies checked out, should I break down and buy a copy of Okrent's book? It wouldn't be a bad addition to my home library, which has a lot of history. Or should I download it to my phone and save some luggage space on the trip? More and more the e-book becomes the easy choice. When will the library start lending e-books? And when will the library just morph into iTunes?

I hope not soon, at least not until they figure out how to replicate the aroma of a library -- paper, glue, binding, and humanity -- in an online experience. For me, this scent is a Proustian trigger that urges me to explore the new and different. It takes me back to my first library, a neighborhood place on the edge of a blueberry farm in suburban Bellevue, Washington. At kindergarten age, we were allowed to cross the fields to check out books about insects, dinosaurs, snapping turtles and spaceships under the apple tree. I discovered the story of Minn of the Mississippi, a giant snapping turtle whose life spanned the continent from the headwaters of the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico ... places I'd barely heard of. We sat on the linoleum floor and browsed the lower shelves, checked out a stack (you could have up to six!) with our crumpled, hand-typed cards. As often as not, the hike to the library was a meander through a living world of dragonflies, frogs, salamanders, stink bugs and katydids giving life to the grassfields and drainage ditches of the pre-Microsoft Seattle area. Intrigued by the reality and life around us, we borrowed the ideas behind it ... and brought them back two weeks later.

What do the Muslims think about the Crusades, and what do the Hindus think about when they're decking themselves out with flowers and bathing in the river? And what do the Conservatives think about Obama's Hope? Do snapping turtles still traverse the Mississippi from headwaters to Delta?

The answer is probably just a short walk from where you live. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Bing This

2009-05-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

"But It's Not Google." That's the snarky derivation that Net wags are giving to Microsoft's new Bing search engine. Micro hopes to take yet another run at Google, the monster, killer Web app that has become a global verb. And, according to the New York Times, Steve Ballmer hopes the name will 'verb up,' just like Google did.

Will it work this time? Go to Bing.com (I got there the usual way, by Googling it) and you'll get -- not a search engine, but a video ad for the coming attraction. And here's the promise: Bing doesn't just deliver results, it delivers what you need to make decisions: comparisons, drilldown links, groupings, options.

But wait. Isn't that Yahoo? Before Google, Yahoo was the go-to search page because it provided you with an edited catalog of relevant results. I'd argue that Google beat this not just because its results were more frequently updated, but because they weren't pre-edited. And they were fast. The Google results page can be scanned quickly and easily, then fine-tuned through another lightning-quick search. Users find what they want incrementally through dialog, kind of the way a learning brain likes to work, rather than by being presented with a single, complicated click-splat layout of pre-filtered results. We know where the market went, and where it has stayed.

But then I'm an old geezer. Maybe the kids can handle more stuff on the screen than I can. Maybe they're not incremental, dialog-based searchers. Maybe they like click-splat. Maybe Bing will deliver the bling that MicroSoft is looking for. Maybe.

Good luck.

Companies need to remember: Twitter is a two-way Tweet

2009-05-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

Now that Facebook is worth billions again, and Twitter is so hot that it's attracting scammers, it might be time to take them seriously as channels for corporate marketing messages.

When I was at the Big Corporation we took the easy route with Twitter: used it to rebroadcast our RSS feeds -- news releases, Web site updates, etc. It was easy to set up and worked like a charm.

But.

But I always felt that it was a little TOO easy. And I wondered if our followers were actually reading the tweets. But, hey, it didn't cost anything, so what's the harm?

Here's the perfect commentary on how to use Twitter in a corporate, or in this case, a municipal setting, without coming off as a mindless Twit. Blogger Stan Schroeder's short and funny case study on how the Boston Police Department uses Twitter as an online police scanner makes a great point: it's not only about getting the news out there, it's about humanizing your organization by listening to your audience.

Despite Twitter's primary function as a broadcast medium, don't forget that it's a two-way channel. The gold comes when you put something out there that compels a follower to Tweet back. And the real payoff is about how you handle that. If the straight-faced cops in Boston can loosen up online, maybe you can, too. You should.

Unpack those Beanie Babies and PEZ toys

2009-05-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

Expect a surge in eBay traffic next year. Former president/CEO Meg Whitman is writing a memoir in preparation for her planned California gubernatorial bid in 2010. It's expected to publish in February. According to the New York Times, the book will be less about the online auction icon and more about Whitman's personal values. Oh boy.

Hey, good luck, Meg. But I'm hoping to cash in on the cases of old cameras, fishing equipment and (still) unsold Beanie Babies I drag out every once in a while when things get slow.

Here are a couple gems from the eBay Wikipedia entry:

The story that eBay was founded to sell PEZ collectibles is a PR myth
The first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer
eBay entrepreneurs have tried to sell the parts for a cruise missile, a complete F/A 18 Hornet, and an entire aircraft carrier, with varying success
Last year during the Icelandic financial meltdown, someone put the entire island up for sale on eBay. Bjork was not included.
It's unclear at this point whether Whitman's book will be available on eBay

Mad Men: the lost script

2009-05-22T07:44:00.001-07:00

Congrats to the Pittsburgh Ad Federation for their successful Mad Men event, held at the Left Field space of Smith Brothers Agency on the North Side last night. Way too much alcohol, not enough Lucky Strikes. In other words, the evening was as perfect as Basket of Kisses.

While we were busy gobbling up things wrapped in bacon, a well-worn typescript fell to the floor from the briefcase of someone standing nearby. I didn't recognize the guy -- he was wearing a fedora, a skinny black tie, and the shiniest shoes I've ever seen on a man. I picked up the papers to hand them back to him, but he had vanished.

Anyhow, it turned out to be a script for the upcoming season of the hit AMC show. I share a piece of it with you, because I know that you, too, are a hopeless fan:

OPEN on ROGER STERLING staring into camera. Small beads of sweat stand out on his well-tanned forehead and drip from the edges of his perfectly cut silver hair. Roger lights up a Lucky Strike and blows a forceful and tense puff into the camera. Pull back to reveal DON DRAPER standing behind him.

ROGER STERLING (as DON DRAPER lights up a Lucky Strike): Don, I got a call from IBM today. They want to change their media spend. They're pulling it off of television and putting it into something ... something they're calling "The Internet"

DON DRAPER: Internet?

ROGER STERLING (turns to face DON DRAPER. Mixes himself a Rusty Nail): Yeah. Never heard of it. They're telling me it's like television, only you can watch all the porn you want with it.

DON DRAPER (picking up a bottle of Old Granddad on the credenza): Porn? What about Bonanza? What about the Loretta Young Show? What about Dick Van Dyke? They're pulling huge share for these guys. And the "Think" slogan. We billed 20 million for that. We focus grouped the hell out of it, and that messaging is solid. Christ, Roger, I've got John Cameron Swayze lined up for the next flight of sixties. It's gonna cost us to pull out now.

ROGER STERLING: Who cares about Hoss and Little Joe when you can get a look at Marilyn Monroe's ta-tas for free? They say that what we're doing is not moving the iron, Donny. They're saying we dropped the ball. They're saying YOU dropped the ball.

DON DRAPER (pours himself a third Sidecar): Come on Roger, someone's blowing smoke up their asses. They're not talking about moving the business, are they? I can control this.

ROGER STERLING (stubbing out his cigarette, lights up a pipe): I don't know what they're telling you, but I saw Tom Brown having drinks at Delmonico's the other night with two suits from Google, Jobs and Gore. Way too buddy-buddy for us to feel comfortable about it. You had damn well better control it.

PEGGY OLSON appears in office doorway in a starched cotton blouse, carrying a stack of folders

PEGGY OLSON: I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Sterling, but you said you wanted these survey results right away.

DON DRAPER (lights another Lucky, glares at Peggy): Peggy, this is not a good time.

ROGER STERLING: No, it's all right. We're just about done. Wait a minute, Peggy, didn't we just send this out this morning? How'd you get results so fast?

PEGGY OLSON: Survey Monkey. On the Internet.

DON DRAPER (sloshing his drink): Monkey?

ROGER STERLING: Don, why don't you shut up and pour yourself another Grasshopper.

PEGGY OLSON (lights up a Lucky): Roger, there's something else I think you should have a look at. It's called "YouTube."

DON DRAPER: Tube?

On the Internet, nobody knows you're not Ben Roethlisberger

2009-05-21T07:11:00.000-07:00

Businesses struggling to find a workable strategy for social networking can learn from the story in today's Post-Gazette about the Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger. Some Internet hoser posing as Big Ben started a rumor that the quarterback has skin cancer. The story ping-ponged around the usual social sites -- Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc., forcing Ben and the Steelers to issue a public denial and sending Ben's agency out to try to get the inaccurate content pulled.

The lesson? You're not in charge. Not only can you not control the conversation; you can't even control your identity.

Roethlisberger has his own official NFL web site, but does not have social network accounts. I mean, who's got the time?

Companies like SouthWest Airlines and Murphy-Goode winery are hiring full-time Twitterers to build online followings for their brands (thanks for the reference, Scotty).

Big Ben doesn't really need to do that. He just needs a little Defense.

Rocket science made chimp simple: 10 web-building tips from the New York Times

2009-05-20T05:10:00.001-07:00

I was going to write a white paper on basic business Web best practices, but some wise guy at the New York Times has already done it. Check it out. It's focused on blogs, but most of these ideas about search optimization, link strategy and using the Web's free social networking tools apply to any Web site .... including your business Web. These are the basics, and they are things you can do yourself. Are you doing them all?

Creative Briefing, by the way, gets a C minus when measured against this list. My portfolio site, admittedly a work in progress, fails miserably. The boss has some work to do.

Will the last one leaving MySpace please turn out the lights.

2009-05-18T05:25:00.000-07:00

The blogs have been talking about it for months (years, actually. Today, a new forecast from eMarketer predicts that social network ad spending in 2009 will drop, despite growth in Facebook spending, due mainly to a crash in MySpace share.

Blogger Jason Miller sums it up pretty well: "If it's lucky, MySpace is the new Yahoo. If unlucky, and it is unlucky lately, MySpace is AOL. Facebook has supplanted it, and will continue to do so."

Did Rupert Murdoch do it? Did Facebook do it? Did the kids do it? Did their parents and grandparents do it? Too ugly, too porny, or just too old?

Love to hear your thoughts.

That is, if you're not to busy Facebooking.

Where the money went

2009-05-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

If you weren't at yesterday's Search Marketing Day, sponsored by the Tech Council and IMPAQT, here's what you missed:

a) A chance to encounter one of the Burgh's many best-kept secrets: a vibrant community of digital marketing entrepreneurs (shouts out to Jami, Robbin, Pat and Karl)

b) Truly enlightening presentations and panels, orchestrated by the folks at PTC and IMPAQT, on everything from how to build Web sites that people will buy stuff from to why it's important to tell "delightful stories" on said Web sites (thanks, Abu).

c) A keynote that applied not just to this little conference at the Radisson in Greentree, but to the economy, and maybe the universe in general. Delivered by Geoff Ramsey, guru of industry daily emarketer, it was bad news/good news if you're in this business. The bad news, as everybody knows, is that media spending is going off a cliff this year. The good news, according to Ramsey's survey of ad industry data sources, is that some of the cuts in offline media are actually being diverted to, duh, online ... and online is actually going to be OK, maybe even grow. Context is key, though: as Ramsey put it, "flat is the new up." Apparently you can get a copy of this eye-opener by contacting Ramsey directly. Try a request to geoff@emarketer.com.

d) A Twitter table. (Sorry, too busy to Tweet.)

e) And a chance to grab some free wi-fi. (Well, it was included in the $99 price of admission). I brought Ubuntu with me, but things were moving so fast I didn't get a chance to open her up and show off my geek cred. Maybe next time.

Making your own kind of music is getting cheaper than ever

2009-05-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this post in Ubuntu. But you can read it because Ubuntu isn't an exotic African language, it's a computer language. In fact, it's a dialect of Linux, the computer world's version of Esperanto.

I outfitted my wife's ancient discarded Sony laptop with this free, open-source operating system to make it faster and more secure. ('Upgrading' this old, underpowered PC to Windows XP had made it virtually unusable.)

Why waste a weekend struggling with my inner geek? I'll tell you: I needed a laptop that would work, getting Windows fixed would have cost more than buying a new laptop, and I can't afford a new laptop right now.

Ubuntu is free, like most other Linux systems. You can download it from its Web site or get it on a DVD tucked into one of the handful of Linux magazines on sale at Borders. It installs pretty much like any other software upgrade.

My point, and I do have one, is not that everybody should make the leap and give Microsoft the fate it deserves; my point is that Linux is one of those tools that's changing the face of entrepreneurial business by making the tools of daily life cheap, free and tribal. Quite refreshing.

Today's WSJ profiled five entrepreneurs who either left or were ejected from corporate life by the economic crisis and are trying to make it big by starting small. As interesting as the article itself was the comments section, which included this thought:

"One important factor not mentioned though is that the cost of starting a business has fallen dramatically. Specifically for those entrepreneurs starting technology or web businesses.

Just think about all the open source software that is free and the global talent that technology makes accessible at low rates. This is a huge change and makes entrepreneurship possible for many people. Its one of the main reasons I left my job to start a web business and have not looked back since."

....couldn't have said it better myself..in English, Ubuntu, or Esperanto.

At big companies, I've often felt locked into big, expensive and not-all-that-great technology platforms, not because they were the best, but because of big IT contracts and long-term deals. In the meantime, tools like analytics, content management, blogware, content syndication, video hosting, social networking and more, have all gone tribal: cheap, even free, and subject to continuous upgrades and improvements by a beehive of entrepreneurial engineers who just can't leave problems unsolved.

So if you're starting a business, look at Linux for your PCs. Looke at Skype for your phone service. Look at Salesforce.com for prospecting -- the personal edition is FREE!

I hope these guys are making money somehow, because they're making the world a better place.

Analytics: Culture or Cult?

2009-05-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

An article in Sunday's New York Times asks an interesting question if you're in the business of Web marketing: Can you pay too much attention to your customers?

The Web gives us the power to analyze every single click on every single link of every page in every single campaign. There has been nothing like it in the history of advertising ... no focus group, no survey, no eyeball tracking, nothing.

For marketers, this of course is the Holy Grail: real, objective feedback in real time. The kind of stuff you can use to tweak a campaign for maximum performance and know right away, bottom line, whether you got it right or wrong.

For creatives, it can be a nightmare. There's there's no place to hide. The feedback is instantaneous, brutal and real.

Can it also be wrong?

In the article, one of Google's top visual designers, who says Google wouldn't let him move an em dash without checking the data, couldn't take it any longer and left for a presumably looser gig at Twitter. For this designer, Google crossed the line between using data to drive results and using it to drive people nuts.

What are the casualties of a culture of analytics, other than the psyches of writers and designers? Can there be great online ideas that don't test well, but accomplish other goals, less tied to clickstreams and conversion rates?

At my last job we dealt with this question daily, through all the various channels wrapped up in a massive corporate Web site. Results could mean anything from a shopping cart click to (I hate to admit it but it's true} an attaboy from senior management. We had to figure out when to test things, when to be slaves to the data, and when to just go with what looks cool.

Jason Burby, a friend of mine in the analytics business, wrote a great book on this subject that explores the dilemma. It suggests some disciplines that should be brought -- by client, by agency and by creatives -- to the task of designing an online campaign. Jason, a pragmatic idealist, believes that all parties can in fact agree, get along, and succeed together. The key is up-front agreement on what the goals are, and on diciplined testing of executions against those goals.

This is advertising 101. It's always been the way to put together an effect campaign, on or off line. The difference with online work is that the focus group is the entire universe. Burby's book Actionable Web Analytics, written with Shane Atchison, was written a couple of years ago, but the wisdom is still current. It's worth checking out if you're trying to deepen your understanding of this dynamic trend.