CwF + RtB = $$$$$

Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, or just about every URL you click on, somebody, somewhere is talking about social media. Social media this...social media that. Which is fine and dandy. But for me, going on and on about social media (which is a tool/tactic) is like holding a seminar on hammering nails into 2 x 4's instead of talking about how to build a house. 

For me a much more interesting conversation is - what are the business models of the new economy?

For years companies have reaped astronomical amounts of profit without giving customers any real value. Commercials for the last (at least) thirty years have pounded the beat of consumption in the marketplace until there was a hole in the drum set. We've been pouring ourselves glasses of shiny new objects, year after year, without really exploring what will really quench our thirst.

Right now we are in a moment of great shift. The business of print media is under assault, manufacturing jobs have been declining for years,  and ever since the birth of Napster, the music industry has been fighting a losing battle in trying keep the old ways alive. Now with what I've just mentioned I've only scratched the surface of the realities of the new economy.  

Business models need to be in alignment with where today's market realities are.  In a way, identifying that may be challenging, but even more difficult, is successfully executing a strategy that will allow your business model to become sustainable. 

In 2008 I posted my first blog discussing Trent Reznor and his wickedly ingenious approach to re-imagining the "NIN experience", and have also discussed him on a number of succeeding posts as well. 

In the presentation below, Michale Mansnick awesomely discusses Trent's experiments with building the NIN brand in the networked economy. It highlights the following equation as the formula for future music business models:

       Connect with Fans (CtF) + Reason to Buy (RtB) = The Business Model ($$$$$)

Now this may be about an artist in the music world but it can be applied to just about any industry.

Remember the spirit of "play"

So we all know the saying "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Now the question is, how many of us actually take this to heart? Well for lots of folks, play is synonymous with immaturity and a lack of focus for dealing with the "problem" at hand. For others it's a word as necessary as food, clothing and shelter. For me it's all about understanding the necessity of "serious play" and having fun while getting things done. So in sticking to my own philosophy, this past weekend I did just that. 

Last week my good friends over at 88 decided to kill DC with a 5 day mini festival celebrating electronic creative culture. This past Saturday, one of the members of 88, Graham Jackson (also the evil genius behind our logo and the design of our Cnvrgnc marketing arts booklet) invited me to check out their party, "the dig", that they were having, featuring renowned house DJ, Theo Parrish. Now I'm a HUGE fan of music (with a title plate on my office desk: Head Honcho of beats, rhymes and life), but I'll be the first to admit - there's lots out there that I don't know about, and I had never heard of Theo Parrish. 

So Graham was amped about this being Theo's his first gig ever in DC. Me being the curious chap that I am, decided to do a little research, and find out who this cat was.  I found the video below on him, and was diggin' it! At 2:54 Theo hits a home run for me by saying "being a professional at the same time as being a kid, that's a large philosophical take behind my label. . .you have to remember the spirit of play."

You gotta love that.

Thanks Theo, for playing hard at work!

What would you kill for?

I would kill for. . .

• The understanding that critical thinking is not the same as education (we are in dire need of the former).

• Sexy and substance co-existising (more often than it does).

• Design thinking that creates something of affection, that can be shared, and shifts how you and I would understand one another.

• The poison that's running through the veins of our political system, to be drained into the city sewers.

• The understanding that building a business is not the same as building a brand - there is a difference.

• Advertising to reinvent itself. Huge chunks of it is crap (not to mention sucks).

• Passion and reason burning like a 1,000 degree fire, in the hearts of each and every one of us.

• More substantive conversations around how social media is a tactic and not a strategy and why understanding this absolutely matters.

• The understanding that content is limiting without a story, and that a story truly impacts in the presence of a powerful narrative.

• The recalibration of our thinking on what capitalism is, and create something that has yet to exist. 

• The convergence of creativity and commerce in much more radical ways.

• The world believing in more impossible things.

Where's the Beef?

In my opinion this is one of Wendy's best advertising campaign's ever. The message is pretty straight forward. 

In today's networked world, where digital is the seemingly 'uncontrollable beast' stomping on and devouring everything in its path, I'm asking the exact same thing. There's a ton of content out there, but the content has no real meaning (countless diggs, retweets, facebook updates, etc).  Saaay maan. . .where's the beef?! 

You can find it when you dive into the intersection of business, technology and culture. This allows you to swim in the maket ideas of Kogi, Threadless, Apple, and NIN music, products that people want, where lots of value is being offered and customers are actually willing to pay for it.

When you just focus on technology (i.e current social media "darlings" like twitter and facebook) you address only one dimension of a mult-dimensional world. It seems that, when it comes to the pundits, the conversation is about social media, as the big picture, instead of the big picture and how social media fits into it. It's mostly about how Twitter rocks instead of a rockin' idea and how to use twitter to spread the word. 

So when I came across the below Ad Age article by Alex Reiss, I clenched my fists and said "yeesss!"

Rock on Alex. . .

Why I stopped Tweeting By Alex Kniess

I've never been great at sharing a constant stream of fresh content online. I have a personal blog that's been updated a handful of times in the last year (maybe longer, I don't even remember). I don't have a Del.icio.us page nor do I Digg things. I probably have dozens of online accounts that haven't been updated in years. And if you look at my Twitter page you'll see tweets from the beginning of December.

Ask any "social-media expert" and they would probably tell you I'm doing it all wrong. And maybe I am. But I can't help but check my Twitter feed every few days and see the majority of those I'm following doing nothing but retweeting each other or posting links to other people's opinion. Sharing is caring and I love to learn new things, but I've come to a breaking point. It seems like the majority of the content I subscribe to is repurposed and watered down. There is so much noise out there that it's hard for me to find the source. Where are the original ideas coming from?

This is why I've had a slowly decaying online presence. I started to catch myself becoming one of the many who were sharing the ideas of the few. In my opinion, quality should trump quantity and a stale online presence may be exactly what some of us need to cultivate.

I've since resolved to the old-fashioned means of sharing ideas in person, via e-mail, or among friends on Facebook. The common thread is that I'm now stumbling upon new information, learning new things and sharing my ideas with people with whom I have relationships, rather than the faceless masses.

When looking for a job, it's absolutely valuable to have a presence online and to naturally share the fresh stream of content I'm so terrible at keeping up. However, you should be careful of over-sharing and retweeting just to expand your online footprint. Doing this may just water down those nuggets of wisdom that come only once in a while, and when employers can't tell the difference between your opinions and the ideas of others that you're merely sharing, then it all becomes pointless.

When writing this post, I deleted and re-wrote my thoughts several times. Because I couldn't think of the perfect way to get my words out, I now have to temper my thinking. Here's the catch: I still believe in the mass broadcasting of ideas and sharing of information (after all, you're reading this blog post). In fact, I still learn a lot of new information in the very manner I'm advocating against. So, like I said at the beginning, maybe I'm doing it all wrong.

But I stand by my words when I say that we've had enough "Top 5" lists. Our sharing of ideas and information should be purposeful and well thought out. Our opinionated blog posts should show how we really feel.

Improve your now. . .create your future

Redesigning The DNA Of Your Life And Your Organization

The Three Laws of Performance reconstructs how we look at problems, challenges and solutions that impacts, as we should be looking at it, the intersection of our personal and professional lives. Steve Zaffron and Dave Logan, performance experts, go right to the heart of the matter: how to achieve extraordinary, lasting results.

This happens by employing the three laws to your personal and professional environments:

Law 1:  How People Perform Correlates To How Situations Occur To Them –The First Law rejects the concept that people do what they do because of a common understanding of the facts, and instead takes the view that people do what they do because their actions are correlated to how situations occur to them.  When people understand that situations occur differently to each of us, then other people’s responses and actions suddenly make sense.

Law 2:  How A Situation Occurs Arises In Language – How situations occur is inseparable from language.  Untying the knots of language begins with seeing that no matter what is said, other communication is carried along with it.  The unsaid – but communicated – includes assumptions, expectations, disappointments, resentment, regrets, interpretations, and more.

Law 3:  Future-Based Language Transforms How Situations Occur To People – This Law rests on an important distinction:  there are two different ways to use language.  The first use is descriptive – using language to depict or represent things as they are or have been.  The second is future-based.  It has the power to craft vision, and to illuminate the blinders that prevent people from seeing possibilities.