Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

A Note on the Loss of Quality in Audio, Image and Video

On September 9, 2009, EMI will at long last issue newly remastered versions of the Beatles' albums and singles in stereo and mono on CD.  On that same day will be released a version of the popular videogame Rock Band featuring the Beatles' original recordings, which very well might outsell (in volume, total dollars and profit) the CD versions.  Though nearly impossible to quantify, the Beatles Rock Band's cultural impact will dwarf that of the CD's, which as a medium is fast becoming a relic.  Teenagers and their parents will congregate to "play" the as-yet-unnamed songs, signifying interactivity's transcendence over the relatively passive phenomenon of our parents' screaming at TV screen while the Fab Four played the Ed Sullivan Show.  Of course, we will have to wait through one more holiday season of the Beatles being unavailable via iTunes and Rhapsody, though they are available via the indirect sources of Pandora (and Rhapsody artist radio stations), so EMI, Apple Corps and the publishers can have one last financial hurrah before the CD's demise.

Yet, something seems amiss.  This sunset of the CD's predominance feels like the end of an era and sensibility that I'm not quite willing to let go of.

image credit: grange85

In the troughs of advanced digital technology, there's still an underground group of people who are embracing the science of photography in its fundamental form. Yes, pinhole photography is alive. Our own Chad Stoller has been trying his hand at it since he received a 35mm pinhole camera kit from his mom as a birthday present.

I'm sure we've all tried to make one as a grade school experiment. But there are adults who take great time and skill to cultivate the perfect pinhole camera.

In celebration, Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is this Sunday. Try your hand at something creative. Need some inspiration? Chad Stoller shared this site.

It has me asking: as technology simplifies our lives more and more, will the science behind how things work become lost?

If you were to build a camera, what materials would you use? Share your pinhole camera and photos with us.

Sarah Jo Sautter

Dan Klyn, a speaker at the IUE2009 conference, is an information architect by trade, and has sought out to create a book via collaboration around the lessons that IAs and XAs have yet to steal from "regular-old architects".

regular-old-architects seem to do a better job than information architects in the schematics-and-models phase of a project. their trade is an ancient one, and i suspect they've learned some things about the creation and use of abstract representations of design intent to secure client buy-in and sign-off.

His goal is to help those in the design and marketing profession avoid those dreaded client words: Now that I see it! It's this type of miscommunication and misunderstandings that leads to last minute changes and bad decisions, because the client didn't really understand until it was too late.

What can we learn from architects:
1. Start with the joints (points of stress)
2. Progressive disclosure: a logical, smooth storyline
3. Detail generates character
4. Embrace collaborative authorship
5. Get physical, get emotional

Sure, these are good lessons for information architects, experience architects, user experience designers, etc. But I would argue that there is a wider moral to be learned from each one of these points. We should all be testing out friction points in projects and presentations, spending our energy wisely on the pieces that create character, give our clients a reason to care... These five lessons from real architects teach us how to tell better stories and thus how to create better work.

photo credit: dramafreezone

Last month we told you about a local restaurant who asked patrons to Yelp about them. 

There has been quite backlash around restaurants "paying" to have positive reviews displayed more prevalent than the negative ones. In Chicago it has altered how the restaurant community views Yelp.

So when a local Detroit area restaurant asked customers to give them reviews, customers instinctively thought they were asking for POSITIVE reviews. Appears they really weren't asking for positive reviews after all. The owner came clean in an email mid March.

No ill-intentions or "shady yelping" as someone put it were the motivation here. Just good, honest guest feedback to help me as a business owner and, in today's current economy, I will take all of the feedback I can get to help grow my business and serve everyone walking in our doors.

Thanks again to all of you who took this the way it was meant. I did get some great feedback and suggestions. I should have elaborated a little more on my Email. It was not a cry for "Yelp." But, I did get ALL the "Yelp" I will ever need.

Sincerely,

Tim,
Zumba Mexican Grille

This is an example of a small business owner who gets customer service. He's embracing social media as a means to help him better his products, or in this case, his salsa bar.

Then, he took the action even further when he truly altered his product and service based on customer feedback. In an email he sent out at the end of March, he tells subscribers that he's listened and made three significant changes. Hence, he brought back an old favorite, made improvements on freshness and dropped prices.

Now that's the way to do business!

Sarah Jo Sautter

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Designer Mike Rohde was hired to created real time sketchnotes for this year's SXSW. I am only on slide eight and my eyes are wide:

1. Love the way this tells the story of SXSW.
2. SXSW's brand is catapulted thanks to this and similar types of UGC. What happens when great creators are allowed to express their engagement with a brand or brand event?
3. The art direction is inspired. It would be difficult to plan this depth design + content.
4. It's on Flickr -- why not the SXSW web site? It might be there, but the user chose this platform for his own reasons -- Flickr offers so much more for the user's benefit. Now it's up to SXSW to leverage this, if they can...
5. Slide 8: "Couldn't write fast enough..." This guy's humble.

Speakers and presenters should feel honored to be in this moleskine. To hear more about how Mike Rohde creates these real time sketchnotes, you can listen to this Thirsty Developer podcast from last October. Thanks to David Feldt for the link.

Craig Ritchie

I was recently on the receiving end of a company using their customer base (email subscribers) to help counter negative reviews, but I'm not so sure I agree with their tactics. This restaurant -- which I frequent for take-out -- has been getting some bad reviews on Yelp. In an effort to pump up their rating, they sent out the following email:

Subject: Yelp me out Please!

In the the last month I have gotten some really bad Salsa Bar Reviews.

Jason M.,  Royal Oak
The food was alright, nothing any better than what a chain like Qdoba or others could do. It seemed fresh and the staff was nice. I would have probably given it three stars until I walked around to the salsa bar. What a disappointment! They were watery, it seemed like the tomatoes used were canned, stewed at best. The others were boring.... I hope to give it more stars, but lose that poor excuse for a salsa bar!
                        
Tim E.,  Detroit
All in all it wasn't too bad. The food was good enough... the salsas were awful! From the mild that seemed to be mostly a mooshed up can of stewed tomatoes to the others that seemed watery at best. I wish I would give it more stars, I really wanted to, but those darn salsas got in the way!
                       
Janelle P., Clawson
But now for the bad...  The salsas are terrible.  So terrible, in fact, that they should be ashamed to serve them.  The mild salsa tastes like spaghetti sauce, the tomatillo is too acidic, and the chipotle-tomatillo is garbage.  Seating is also limited and kind of awkward, especially when the restaurant is busy.  Not the best seating layout ever designed. 

I would love to hear your opinion! Thanks!

The problem is that it appears they are banking on these negative experiences being the exception (where the Company is right and the customers are wrong).  I tend to agree with some points from the customers in the email and I might not have bothered to Yelp about it until now.

Another point is how credible will those one-time reviewers, even though positive, be to a frequent Yelper like myself? I tend to place more weight on the heavy reviewers and ones who have positively reviewed restaurants that I have liked as well.

I think a stronger action might have been for Zumba to compliment this with a statement as to how they are working to improve their product/service based on this feedback. Remember, the customer is always right.

In case you're wondering, I love their spicy Pico de gallo.

Sarah Jo Sautter

 

Staying in line with the Extra Homepage concept - linking blog and other coverage to stories as they are posted - the NYTimes has raised the bar on coverage of big political speeches with their interactive viewer of last night's address to a joint session of congress by President Obama.

Combining the footage with a timeline and analysis from around the web scrolling in time with the footage - this is how good analysis of this kind of event can be in almost real time. In the age of PVRs, why not wait a few hours and watch when the analysts and fact checkers can watch right along with you? Whether you watched the speech live or not, whether you twittered through it, whether you're a policy wonk or rabid politico or not it makes for some compelling content.

Alex Churchill

I recently finished reading Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations" where he discusses how the Internet has significantly empowered us to connect, exchange ideas, work together and engage in unprecedented public action well beyond the organizational constraints of old. He includes many great examples where large groups of people have embraced the new social technologies at our disposal to achieve extraordinary things.

A quote from the book really resonated with me:

"We are used to a world where little things happen for love and big things happen for money ... Now, though, we can do big things for love."

I thought to myself: "Imagine a world where we successfully leverage our social connectivity to contribute significantly to the upliftment of others less fortunate. That's a powerful idea - an idea whose time has come."

I first witnessed this idea in action in November, 2008 with the success of Tweetgiving which helped raise over $10,000 in 48 hours to build a new school in Tanzania. Then, on January 6th, 2009, David Armano bravely reached out via Twitter to his personal community to help a struggling mother and her three kids start a new life. He and his network helped raise over $16,000 for Daniela and her kids in just over a week with the majority of the donations being made within the first 24 hours.

A cosmic light had been ignited in Twitterville. It was time to take these incredible individual efforts to a global scale...

Nike combines their world-class storytelling with modern in-the-moment citizen journalism with this new Nike 5 Tournament Ad. While filming the ad with Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand in Manchester for the Nike Five 5-a-side Tournament, an onlooker catches the best footage on his mobile phone of a SOT (soccer-obsessed-teen) taking Rooney's pants down. Nike drops it in the ad, with the original mobile phone footage for proof-of-realism on YouTube.

Craig Ritchie

As a news junkie, one of the places Twitter has stood out in my mind is how major events (earthquakes, plane landing in the Hudson, etc) where "first reported" on this service...if you only knew how to get that content, verify it and distribute it to interested people.

Because Twitter basically delivers information via text, I've always thought it speaks to the potential power of newspapers online. But most attempts to integrate have been ham-fisted at best, with few readers caring to interact with staff and the whole discussion happening off in some nether world the non-Twittering majority never sees.

Today, in the wake of the Buffalo plane crash, the Los Angeles Times (www.latimes.com) did something interesting by linking to the search term "Buffalo" over at Twitter and featuring this link right next the story on the homepage. Clicking over to Twitter revealed a well-populated stream of thoughts ("I canceled my flight due to winds" "I was going to Buf today") and other comments, links to content, etc. And this conversation was visible to all readers, regardless of their followings. While it could likely have been narrowed to make the stream even better (e.g. no Buffalo Sabres news mixed in), there was plenty to explore related to the crash.

This solves two problems:

1. It develops yet another potential way Twitter could be utilized to add value to a product without a massive investment of time and effort from the end user.

2. It creates a potential way for newspapers to develop much more relevant conversations on their sites.