The Steve Rubel Stream

Three Digital Trends for the New Decade

Have you tried mind mapping? I am a mind mapping fanatic. I find that it really helps me think through challenges and develop innovative solutions. Chris Brogan too is a fan. He uses it to plot out his projects and ensure he's on target. 

I have been giving a talk recently on the three key trends that marketers will need to adapt to in the new decade: 1) the move from a a web of pages to a web of streams, 2) the challenge in becoming more digitally visible in an age of too much noise and 3) the need to become more data driven in everything we do - and with a do-it-yourself attitude (DIY).

Recently I gave a talk on this topic at a conference in Amsterdam and the folks at World of Minds created a mind map of it, which you can find here (PDF) or on Scribd.

What do you think of these? I love when others mind map my speeches and also large events because you get to see how others interpret your thoughts. I have long wanted to create more mind maps here. If I did, what kind of maps would be valuable? Let me know in the comments on Twitter.

As I write this column it’s the morning after the long Memorial Day weekend and the web is brimming with activity. Google searches are spiking for Ted Koppel, who’s 40-year-old son was tragically found dead. Twitter, meanwhile, is abuzz over WGM – short for the primetime Korean reality show “We Got Married”. This is perhaps a direct reflection of the service’s growing global appeal. Finally, over on Facebook word is spreading of a scam featuring what’s deemed as a “hilarious video”. A CNN news story on the hoax currently has over 10,000 shares.

All of these are disconnected events; a Polaroid snapshot of our psychology at a single moment in time. Some of these memes are ephemeral. Others may be lasting. However, our success as marketers increasingly hinges on having a deep, real-time understanding of our networked environment and how these themes can impact our programs. Enter situational awareness – an essential skill every CMO-level executive and their staff must build and evolve.

Situational awareness, according to Wikipedia, is “the practice of being aware of what is happening around you to understand how information, events, and your own actions will impact your goals and objectives, both now and in the near future”. It’s common throughout the intelligence community. The White House Situation Room, for example, operates a 24/7 Fusion Center that pulls together 3,000 sources of information into three daily briefings for the President. For more, see this fascinating short video.

What’s important to note is that situational awareness is not a substitute for client/brand monitoring, reporting or measurement. Rather, it’s a complementary set of processes that help you form gut insights that make marketing, public relations and/or digital engagement more efficient and effective.

Most CMOs will not need the intricate web of systems that the White House employs. Yet every marketer should be required to make situational awareness part of his/her daily workflow. It all needs to happen in a focused way, at every level and in both client and agency organizations. The good news is that situational awareness can be quite simple. The bad news is that very few people have created the daily systems or habits required to succeed. Here are three simple tools to add to your workday to get started.

Google Trends

Many marketers look first to Twitter and Facebook for consumer insights. However, they often overlook Google. This is a mistake. Far many more people search than those who engage on social networks. Therefore, Google knows more about you than your own mother. And, much the same, day in and day out it can tell us a ton about what we’re thinking as a society. The Google Trends home page is about as good a barometer as any for what the US and the world is thinking about right now. I try to check into this page several times a day. In many ways, it’s like a 24/7 supermarket checkout line.

Seesmic Web

One of my colleagues described Twitter as the new daily newspaper. A blogger who I met recently at a client event described it as “Google with a brain”. While Twitter’s audience pales in comparison to Google or Facebook, there’s no doubt it’s a critical treasure trove of information for what’s top of mind among opinion elites like the media, celebrities and influencers.

One of my favorite situational awareness tools is Seesmic Web, which only requires a browser to run and can sync with mobile device clients that the company has created for every platform. I keep the site open in a tab in my browser with various lists of people who serve as my window into the online world. Over time, this helps me build a deeper understanding of what makes this entire network and its micro communities tick.

ItsTrending

While it doesn’t have the same ecosystem of tools that Twitter supports, as Facebook slowly opens up its data it’s ushering in all kinds of new tools. Some of these are invaluable for helping us shape aggregated insights into the mindset of those who have elected to live more public lives on Facebook.

ItsTrending is one such tool. The free site data mines Facebook for the most popular links, images, news stories and videos on an array of topics. Several visits a day are all you need to develop a deeper sense for how Facebook themes and memes can impact your programs.

These are just three – there are hundreds of others, many of them are free. What’s key, however, is to find the right tools and package them into your workflow so that you have a gut feel for the various online environments you are engaging in daily and how the macro themes can play a role in success or failure.

Image above via Gizmodo

Right now the web is abuzz with commentary about a seemingly real next generation iPhone that was found in a bar. Gizmodo has the details. I don't doubt its authenticity or Gizmodo's reporting work here, but I believe the entire episode could be either a deliberate or somewhat hopeful plant by Apple designed to throw us off the trail of the real thing. I don't have evidence. I am just connecting some dots.

First, some background. Apple is the last company that I am aware of that thrives under command and control PR. Practically every other institution has been forced in this age to open up and become more transparent and collaborative (much to their benefit) - even entire governments. Apple meanwhile has thrived by maintaining precise control over the news flow and holding everything back for the "big reveal" when Steve controls the show. That's the Steve Jobs way - manage the entire "end to end" ecosystem, including the App Store and PR. And it's worked.

This was very easy before. Now, however, as Apple grows and there's more attention focused on the company, this is getting harder in an era where transparency and openness are the new defaults. So Apple needs to get creative.

It's been reported that Apple allegedly has teams in the company working on prototypes that will never see the light of day. It does so, it's been said, to maintain secrecy and to occasionally throw people off the trail. That's what I think is happening here.

If that's not enough, consider this - Apple appears to strive to maintain the news flow after a product is announced yet before it's available. After the iPad was revealed, it's been reported that Apple kept the few that were in the wild chained down to special tables. So this isn't a company that lets important unreleased devices anywhere near the wild... unless, that is, they want someone to find it.

So, to sum up, here's my analysis. I believe Apple made this device. It seems very authentic and Gizmodo has done a great reporting job. However, more importantly I believe this is probably a false prototype that someone from Apple either left in the bar intentionally or with an individual who they thought might do so for reasons only they know.

We'll find out for sure probably this summer, but that's my educated guess as a continuous student of PR.

LATER:: Gizmodo now has more on the person who lost the phone. However, I wonder if he had the real next-gen iPhone or just one that Apple was comoftable seeing leave its campus for a reason.

Forbes: What do you see as the most significant component?

The most significant component is resonance--the nine factors that Twitter will use to measure the performance of the ads. If an ad isn't performing well across all of these key performance indicators, then the ads will be taken out of rotation. It's very similar to Google's model, which has helped the ads maintain a high degree of relevance.

Forbes: What about it will be most useful to marketers?

The most intriguing aspect of the platform is that it allows businesses to add a degree of permanence to their tweets. This means that they can maintain some degree of visibility, long after they have floated downstream.

The reason this is significant is that the "destination Web era" (where we browse from site to site) is over. Today, more of us are consuming content in stream form. If you're not in the stream when a tweet hits, you're likely to miss it. With this new program, advertisers can now pay to get around this - which is significant - and target their tweets accordingly.

Working for a public relations firm, I am particularly intrigued by how Twitter is positioning it as a reputation management service for companies in crisis.

Forbes: What could Twitter have done better with its ad platform plans?

It's a bit early to tell, but so far nothing. It might have been better if they opened up the process a bit to developers and power users to weigh in, but I am not seeing any kind of backlash so far. I believe that Twitter's audience wants to see them monetize in a way that allows them to maintain and grow the platform they love. The trick is to do so in a way where the advertising adds value to the experience and doesn't get in the way. This seems to hit this nail on the head, but time will be the ultimate jury.

Forbes: What will happen to the other paid Tweet platforms?

Twitter is at a crossroads right now. It is starting to add some of the features that have allowed some vendors in its ecosystem that filled voids to thrive. The trick for these platforms will be to stay ahead of the game. Ideally Twitter will open a dialogue with them to give them a sense of the markets they plan to enter and those they plan to avoid so that the ecosystem can build viable business models without having to worry about them being disrupted by the mother ship.

Forbes: Is there anything about this ad platform that is disruptive either to other social ad platforms or to the way that marketers interact with social consumers?

It's a bit early to tell how disruptive this will be. It all depends on how well the ads are received by the community and how well they perform. It could potentially create a nice direct response platform that complements other, brand-oriented models like those that have made ads on Facebook and YouTube successful.