Atlanta should skip Web 2.0

I love Atlanta. I’ve been here for almost 12 years and I think it is a great city. We’ve got millions of people,  great neighborhoods, great restaurants,  a major airport, lots of free wi-fi, plenty of diverse businesses, a healthy laptop per capita ratio in any coffee shop you should happen to wander into, but somehow I think that Atlanta is not living up to its potential as a great center for web innovation.   And I don’t think I am alone in this opinion.

I’m not saying there is no innovation here, but I think as a city we are a little behind the times.  I offer as example the reluctant adoption of Web 2.0 in Atlanta.  Web 2.0 as both  a term and a practice seems to have only grudgingly been accepted in the Atlanta business world.   Sure, there is a growing pool of adopters leading the charge at events like SoCon07 and 08, AWE, and Barcamp, but to call them early adopters would only be accurate in a geographically limited definition.  They’re early for Georgia, but not for the world.  I’d like to see that change.

I think Atlanta should skip Web 2.0.  Not skip as in miss, but skip as in skip ahead.  Instead of playing perpetual catch-up with innovation centers like Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston and NY, we should leap-frog those places and boldly invest in our time, money, thoughts and effort in redefining the context of the Internet.  The web has become the plumbing of our lives. Business is changing, marketing is changing, socializing is changing, lines are blurring, but we drag our feet and take incremental steps toward ideas that come to us from the west coast.

There are people in this town who would like to see Atlanta at the center of the discourse - a legitimate force in shaping our collective destinies through technology and its catalytic effect on human interaction.  And there is no reason why we can’t be, but we won’t get there by being a follower.  We need to figure out what Web 4.0 is, or 5.0, or maybe dare to embrace a term that isn’t Web x.x anything, but something new, something ambitious, something risky.  We might look silly, but we also may find a point of view, a value, a context that re-centers the discourse.

Let’s start talking.

“Soulful Excellence”

That’s a nice pairing of words; “soulful excellence”.  Highly evocative, together they smack of quality and emotion, like art - not clinical quality, like a spreadsheet.  So few pairings of words smack of anything so I just had to point them out.  I wish I could say they were mine, but alas credit must go to the remarkable Joey Reiman who uttered that phrase yesterday during a presentation for the Technology Association of Georgia’s Enterprise 2.0 Society. Yesterday we had a fabulous meeting featuring Mr. Reiman, Thinker & CEO and Elizabeth Clubb, Thinker & CSO, of BrightHouse.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the phrase itself is that it was used in the context of discussing new enterprise technology solutions.   The social computing mindset is different: powerful and enabling and dangerous to old modes of thinking.  It is changing the way we brand and the way we work.  They are becoming one. “Soulful Excellence” is evidence of that.  Chew on that phrase and watch out for more.

You Can’t Swim on Dry Land

Have you ever tried to walk across the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool? It may have been fun bouncing along under the surface, but you certainly didn’t get anywhere very fast. What works very efficiently on dry land is almost completely ineffectual under the water.

Now imagine trying to swim down a sidewalk. Sounds painful doesn’t it? Without the buoyancy you would just grind in place. Change your medium and what was once an asset can become a liability, a successful tactic might just be limiting your progress or bringing it to a grinding halt.

I’m a big believer in paying attention to context, what works in print may not work in radio. What works on the radio, might not work for TV. The big new swimming pool is social media. Not every marketing tactic is going to work the same in the social web. Some old standbys may not work at all. Trying too hard to control the message and interrupting people will leave you bouncing in one place running out of air. Sharing, educating, listening and participating seem to be the better strokes in these new waters.

K.I.S.S., Mr. Einstein, but why?

When it comes to writing, everyone’s favorite acronym is K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Sage advice, but have you ever asked why? Well here’s another acronym for you: S.I.S. - Simple Ideas Succeed.

I often work with technology companies where the product or service is likely to be anything but simple. The desire to explain and build logical chains from features to benefits often eclipses the ability for an idea to get attention. Think about Albert Einstein for a second. Chances are E = mc² comes to mind before the words “Theory of Relativity” jump into your head. And unless you happen to be a physicist your thoughts are more likely to run to an image of the frazzled-haired genius and not to the concept of energy-mass equivalence.

Does E = mc² really tell me anything about physics or the nature of the universe? Not really. Not on its own. Not to the uninitiated, or at least not without a good hour spent watching a PBS special, but it is has become a familiar surrogate for a complex idea. The symbol spreads farther and more easily than the underlying complex theory. Thus I give you the sibling acronym, part 2: S.I.S. - Symbols for (complex) Ideas Spread.

Yes, I’m torturing an acronym, but if you want your idea to spread you’ve got to make it portable, and simple ideas are easier to carry around. If the idea can’t be easily reduced to a simple phrase, then roll up your sleeves and keep trying. Look for a surrogate, or an icon that can be invested with meaning. You’ve got to do the work so that the job of spreading your idea, the job you are asking your customers, partners and prospects to do for you, is as easy as possible. That leads to the final sibling acronym for the day: S.I.S. - Simplicity Isn’t Simple.

The 3 R’s of Branding

Art Butcher of International Business Academies Limited (a.k.a. IBAL) asked me to write a post to share on the IBAL’s new website. While that project is coming together I thought I would share the post here as well:

Everyone has heard of the 3 R’s of education: “Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic”, but have you heard of the 3 R’s of branding? They are Recognition, Reputation and Reaction.

Recognition: We want our products to be recognized. We want the hard work that goes into packaging our products and services, the money we spend on advertising, and all the planning we do in marketing, to benefit our brand, not the competition. This why logos are important. This why we craft tag lines and slogans. This why Coke is so fussy about the exact shade and hue of red in their packaging. This is why McDonald’s is so aggressive about controlling the use of “Mc____” wherever it can.

Reputation: In the end your branding is a suggestion that your company makes about relevance and meaning, and it is your customers, prospects and partners who get to decide what your brand truly means to them. You can be well recognized, but if your reputation is bad the recognition can hurt you. On the other hand, if your product is undistinguished from your competition, a well recognized brand alone may not be helping you as much as you think. How often have you sneezed, asked for a Kleenex, and been handed a Puff? Did you notice the difference? Did you care? Recognition is naturally associated with reputation, but the reputation is strongest when it encompasses a unique value or serves the needs of a particular niche.

Reaction: This where the money is made, or lost. You want your brand to provoke a positive reaction, to get people to choose your product over the competition’s. You want a reaction so positive and strong that it can beat a sale price on a similar item or have a customer choose your service over another solution. But a negative reaction can be brutal. Whether you are being ignored on the shelf, or actively boycotted, a negative reaction cycle can be ruinous to your business.
So how do you tune your branding to get the reaction you want? Well the magic won’t happen if the recognition and reputation aren’t right. You have to take Recognition beyond merely locating yourself in an industry or slapping a logo on your business card. You have to approach Reputation in a mindful way - don’t just let it happen, participate. Align your values with the expectation you set for your brand. Know the boundaries of your message and the expectations you are setting with your brand promises. Be prepared to walk your talk and fix it when you stumble. You are in the business of developing and maintaining trust.

Here a few more R’s for you: Repetition, Reinforcement and Rigor. Consistent and attentive behavior, clearly communicated value, and a track record of disciplined delivery will support the 3 R’s of Branding and will get you seeing the Reactions the matter.

The Everything Syndrome

That Swiss army knife is great, it has everything in it, and it can do just about anything — if you don’t happen to have any real tools around. The multi-tool sacrifices the ability to do any one thing great, by trying to do everything. Unfortunately, the same is true of a lot of marketing pieces. Anxiety about not missing anything leads to cramming in every last little thing a company can do, so we overload the copy. We think we’re communicating (and therefore selling) the value of the company, but we’re often just causing confusion. In the end this makes messaging less memorable. Each piece of marketing collateral should be serving a purpose, a particular function within your selling process. Don’t try to make every piece do everything. Instead, try to make each piece effective in its given role, and don’t be afraid to hang your hat on the one thing that your company does best. Otherwise, you may end up with a stack of Swiss army knives and still not be able to hammer in any sales.

First Survey Question

After stumbling on an old post by Guy Kawasaki on getting more use out of LinkedIn, I thought I would try LinkedIn’s Answers. It is a relatively new feature of the service that allows you to post questions in a general way to the LinkedIn community. Seemed like a cool idea and a way to get some feedback and insight from the crowd.

As a first question I decided to take an impromptu survey: “I’m gathering responses on branding - what do you feel is your company’s biggest brand problem and how are you attacking the issue?” Although I didn’t get an avalanche of responses, the few I did receive were quite thoughtful. Here’s one from Brent Huston, CEO of MicroSolved, Inc.:

I think differentiation of your product and service as well as educating the consumer about real value are our significant challenges.

We are in the security industry and the marketplace is very very noisy. To make matters worse, the same products and services may go by the same name but be entirely different.

For example some people use the term “penetration testing” to mean ethical hacking - manually mapping and exploiting vulnerabilities to achieve network or system access and control, which as you might imagine is deeply technical and resource intensive. However that same product term “penetration testing” is often also misused and marketed by some vendors as running automated tools and generating automated reports with no analysis or exploitation or any real threat analysis for the controls that protect data.

The trick is educating the customer so that they understand the difference and can pick between apples and oranges instead of seeing them as all the same. I can tell you that is often pretty tough. Some people are willing to learn and others simply don’t know what they don’t know…

I think Brent faces a common dilemma where the pressure of untangling overused and sometimes misused terminology can confuse the marketplace and hamper the brand experience. I’ll be trying to put out more survey questions as I think of them and I’ll post replies (with the author’s permission) when I think they illustrate problems and issues that many of us who grapple with branding and marketing commonly face. Thanks go out to Brent and all the other respondents!

The Mirror and the Lens

We in the marketing game love to talk about processes, tools, trends, methodologies and such, but when it comes to branding I think the most important tools at our disposal are the mirror and the lens. A brand is more than the sum of its marks; it is an expression of the company, a promise to the customers, and a signpost for expectation and accountability.

To brand effectively requires introspection - a good, long, hard, look in the mirror. It is essential to understand what you look like, to know how you are perceived from the outside. You need to examine your best face and your worst hair day to know where to apply your energies and to know how you can best service the brand you’ve created. The mirror help us see ourselves, take in our own gestalt, but we need to be open to what we see when we take a look.

Once we’ve begun to see ourselves, the lens is how we focus down on trouble spots.  Examining detail, tweaking and adjusting under the microscope.  Bending our vision to see as clearly as possible the impact our corporate work flows are having on our outputs and acceptance.

The process is not linear, but a pendulum swinging back and forth between the holistic and the detailed, the gestalt and the minutiae. This motion between mirror and lens bringing context to both views and thereby creating a deep and permeating brand awareness.

Simplicity Made Simple

John Maeda is remarkable. He is a designer, computer scientist,  and spokesperson for all things simple. He is the author of a wonderful little book called “The Laws of Simplicity.“  Why is it wonderful?  Why is he remarkable? Well, anyone who would in print (see p.89) accuse a rugby team (and I say this as a former member of the scrum) of relying too much on intellect is remarkable IMHO.

The book is wonderful because of the audacity and originality of the subject. Maeda takes an a priori concept, simplicity, and makes it the focal point of a structured meditation and analysis. We all know what simplicity is when we run across it.  We admire it when it informs design, and we expect it in our daily interactions with both life and technology, but how many of us have taken a pause to reflect on it? If for no other reason than to take some time out to marinate on the nature of simplicity, this book is a worthy read.

Personally, I am most excited about the role of context in the study of simplicity. Simplicity doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it needs complexity as a foil to have meaning. Exploring the tension between complexity and simplicity can often be the foundation of great design, elegant usability, or even an effective business model. In the book, Maeda keeps it simple, deliberately only scratching the surface on this and other aspects of simplicity, but in doing so he creates a framework for deeper analysis, and even argument.  The simplicity of the structure providing the mental space for exploring a not-so-simple subject.