I think it’s important for us to get a clear understanding of the playing field as it relates to digital marketing today in order to prepare for the challenges we most definitely will face tomorrow. My hope is to provide context for the ideas and direction EMG is heading.

I begin with a few questions that I ask myself every day.

What ideas should we lead with? – The one’s with the best or most compelling creative, relevant strategy, newest technology, most popular or that shows the most promising return on investment? Is it all of the above or something much more complex, integrated and visceral?

How do we measure or benchmark success? Monetize social media? Break through barriers? How do we adapt faster and test quicker? Who are we influenced by? Who do we want to influence?

We now know that digital marketing can at times become the single backbone to success or failure – that it is no longer for simply marketing to youth, Millennials and soccer moms.

We have a continuous flood of information and intelligence resources to help us monitor, uncover and identify common campaign curses, unforeseen pitfalls, potential market penetration opportunities, unique engagement challenges, unconventional strategies and user experience best-practices.

Thought Leaders, must now work together to quickly take advantage of the ever changing digital landscape in order to continue to meet and surpass audience expectations; to not become stale; to determine what to embrace and what to ignore.

Digital marketing has now moved well beyond its infancy of simple electronic press kit sites and landing pages, search marketing, widgets, apps, online promotions and mobile contests, display advertising and even alternate reality games.

Think about the ground-breaking campaigns that are showing success with non-competing partnerships; campaigns that are reaching unbeknownst audiences via aggregated and unique content, popularity rankings, social evangelism and innovative creative; that are creating a personalized story and connection with our audiences outside the boundaries of the previous conventional digital campaign.

How much risk do we take, however?

Regardless of the complexity, all of our goals are singular, simple and historical. Identify the audience, both the core and the fringe, find the best way of delivering our content to them, learn from our success and failures, and risk just enough to stand out and be different.

Left brain verses right, numbers versus pictures. What happens when numerical data exceeds the ability to provide useful information, not because it’s unsolvable, but because the amount of data is expanding so fast that meaning cannot be derived? Sure there is automation to help with the processing, but eventually that data has to be refined to into palatable representations. As marketing becomes more data driven it’s also important to remember it’s marketing’s goal to create emotional reactions.

Think of the Twitter cloud. While an extremely simple example, the Twitter cloud easily displays the biggest topics by increasing the size of the words relative to the number of times a particular word / phrase is mentioned. The data could have easily been presented in numerical results, “245,000 mentions of ice cream,” lifeless. Instead, we “feel” the importance of Ice Cream simply by visualizing its size relative to the other words. We are able to instantly compare the significance of the data based upon feeling, supported by raw numbers. Simple right? What about the fact that data is the fastest growing thing on this planet and its grown rate is actually beginning to exceed the performance abilities of the mediums it’s stored on.

Between the years 2000-2003, two economists at Berkley, Varian and Lyman, estimated that the total production of new information in the year 2000 alone reached 1.5 exabytes. They explain that is about 37,000 times as much information as is in the entire holdings Library of Congress. For one year! Three years later the annual total yielded 3.5 exabytes. That yields a 66% rate of growth in information per year between 2000 and 2003. This is pre-facebook, twitter and MySpace, and look at the amounts of data in those three arenas alone.

Data visualization is crucial to connecting emotional depth with an increased understanding of numbers, especially as we begin to tackle staggering amounts of data. It provides the bridge to communicate the meaning and emotion of the data. It can even bridge the communication gaps that exist between data analysts (left brain) and creative marketing leaders (right brain). The future of marketing relies on both, equally.

Interactive Data Visualization: The following image is a snapshot from Fidg’t, a Java-based desktop application that visualizes a user’s social network using Flickr and LastFM tags. More than just a simple data visualization tool, it allows you to interact with the visual elements and create dynamic relationships from complex data sets and meta-tagging. Simply put, it provides emotional meaning to the data.

The era of the music video has been dead and a thing of the past for a while now. Networks like MTV and VH1 are riddled with reality TV. Who is to blame for the death of music videos? I think there are a few factors… one of them being that music just sucks now. Storytelling is dead (except for R. Kelly’s masterpiece “Trapped in the Closet” ). Reality TV, whether you love it or hate it, has taken over our lives! (”reality” is shaping reality). Another factor I believe killing music videos is the Internet. I think the big WWW has slowly chipped away the popularity of music video count downs and premier’s and will continue to chip away at television. Everything is about being on-demand… you no longer have to wait for the top 10 countdown to get to your favorite video. The proliferation of YouTube has enabled online users to instantly search for a video at their very own fingertips. Oh the wonders of YouTube, how I heart you so!

Enough rambling… I miss music videos (like this one) and wonder if they will ever make a come back. Recently I visited a sweet website that had an interactive music video clip that allows you to draw the music you’re listening to by using a brush that reacts to the music and lyrics. You can also play it back when its finished to watch your masterpiece. Here are some screen shots

Maybe this can be the future of music. An experience that is more engaging and interactive… allowing the user to become a part of the music and the artists’ message. Who knows? Check it out for yourself by clicking here. prollyROB OUT!

Recently EMG worked on a non-profit website for “The Ecology Center.” I was blessed with the opportunity to create the fun, interactive headers on each page. YIPPPY! If you check out the WEBSITE HERE, you can mouse over the headers to trigger animation.So now you’re probably thinking, “How’d we do that?” Well, let’s move on as I guide you step-by-step on how this was achieved.

Step One: Concept & Design

Once the look and feel was handed over to me, I needed to develop a creative direction for each header in terms of the layout and content. If you’ve noticed, the home page flash header has an assortment of colors spanning across through the depicted nature scene. To proceed, EMG decided to split each colored section to represent a different sub-section for the website. After splitting up the homepage graphic we added some more elements to bring the images to life. Check out the screens shots below.

 Step Two: Import & Layout in Flash Read the rest of this entry »

Is social media a dead space for Advertisers now?  Certainly not, however, according to this article that was forwarded to me by a friend (thanks Spore); Randall Stross from the NY Times seems to lean in that direction.  I have a few issues with this article, or perhaps, I take issue with the case study presented as well as the social network platform that was used for this particular Advertising promotion.

The case presented was about Crest White Strips which Proctor & Gamble ran a large promotion.  This article discussed P&G’s campaign on Facebook, specifically, and how they felt the campaign fell short of the desired metrics.

According to the article, “Independent experts on Web advertising” has identified “a myriad of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites.  Members of social networks want to spend time with friends, not brands.”  This is ludicrous.  First off, I would like to know who these “Independent experts” are, and see what level of involvement they have with social networking sites and advertiser campaigns.  As an avid social networking user, I feel that the above quote about users wanting to spend time with friends and not brands is a completely inaccurate statement with a caveat that the brands that are trying to engage the users must position their campaigns in a way that is enticing to that brand enthusiast.

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I really enjoy attending User Experience events. This is one place where I can tell people that I am an Information Architect, without them looking at me and say: So I guess you design houses then?

Trust me, I get that quite a lot at other social gatherings, like birthday parties, weddings and high school reunions…

So, I was at this Los Angeles Designers Meet up recently and a young lady in her mid 20s asked me a question that I have not thought of in recent years.

Her: What would be THE one principle that you have stood by throughout the years in your line of work?”

(I deep thought about my past 10 years in the User Experience field and replied)

Me: Well, it has to be KISS Usability or Keep It Simple Stupid Usability.

(I went on and elaborate)

Me: In fact, it’s easy to make things difficult but it’s difficult to make things easy.

But the key when it comes to usability is to focus on just one thing.

I then shared an article that I’ve recently read, with her. It’s called “Choice Kills Usability” by John Rhodes and here are some key points from that article:

“One of the easiest ways to improve usability is by focusing on just one thing. When you present something to the user, be sure that it’s just one thing. All too often we try too hard to offer people several options.

The reason many people love Google.com is that it offers just one thing: Search. A single-minded focus has enormous implications. Users can clearly understand what Google is about and what it does. Even new users to Google are instantly put at ease because of the outlandish simplicity.

There are branding implications as well. When people think about search they think about Google and when they think about Google they think about search. This brand strength translates to billions of dollars of market capitalization…”

“…billion dollar companies down to gritty little sales pages can benefit from ultra focus. When you eliminate clutter and choices, usability invariably goes up. When there is a single purpose of a web page, product or service everyone wins.

Next time you’re thinking about giving your customers 100 choices, think about the effort that it takes to investigate each decision. Think about the cognitive effort required to sift through option after option. Look, if you “know” there is one best choice; eliminate the junk and focus, focus, focus.

Choice kills usability. Not always — But when you are in doubt about adding features, choices, and options, take the safe path.

Provide a clear vision. Be practical. Focus for usability. “

So, next time, when your customer wants the “About Us” link to be repeated on the header, footer and again on the infamous quick-links section, just because they said it is not prominent enough. Think again, try to recommend a solution that focus and make that “one link” more obvious and prominent.

The footer definitely has much greater use than just repeating what’s in the header and so is the quick-links section. I guess that may be a topic for my next chat up and a blog to follow.

I’d like to report on a weekend after-dinner conversation that reminded me how critical the structure of language actually is. Too often I write off those late school nights I spent with Foucault and Saussure as irrelevant to my day-to-day work as a marketing content developer - but no more!

This renewed passion for structuralism even promises to put myself in a more natural dialogue with my fellow computer scientists. Needless to say, I’m a sucker for intersections and interrelations, and I hope the paraphrased pseudo-transcript below serves to open up a new nexus or two for its readers! Note: names have been changed to protect those involved in the inevitable event that I’m misquoting them!

Christy: Did you hear that scientists proved the human brain is programmed to process language according to structural patterns (“cat” is either the sound made when someone says the word or when someone signs the word) and semantics (“cat” is a furry creature that says meow)?

Mike: They also located the specific areas of the brain where those functions occur, too. So fascinating! Before, it was believed that the capability to recognize structural patterns was developed over time but not innate to the human brain.

Mandy: So, you’re saying that structural patterns are necessary to a human’s experience of verbalized or sign language?

Christy & Mike: Yes!

Mandy: Wow. I wonder if I could use this to support an idea I had about punctuation and standardized usage rules affecting an individual’s experience of language – reading or hearing it.

Christy: I’ve always thought that punctuation and usage rules DETERMINE how one reads language – aloud or in one’s head from a page – so, I think that could work. What do you mean about “experience” though?

Mandy: Well, even though someone may not realize a comma is in the wrong place or that the word “your” is used incorrectly for the conjunction of “you” and “are” (which should be “you’re), I suspect – or would like to believe – that their brain recognizes the error to some degree and experiences the error on a level somewhere between subconscious and conscious. Like with html code, if the bracket is missing before “b>”, the output will not be the intended bolded text.

And, if this is true, then I also suspect that a company or product that defines itself with language rife with errors contributes to individuals’ experiences of that company or product – experiences that ultimately shape conscious belief or actions – being impacted by those errors or conflicted in some way at the very least.

Mike: I think it’s bigger than that, actually. I think usage and punctuation errors impact the explicit meaning, even if it’s not as blatant as the Oracle at Delphi’s story when the Oracle told its questioner, “You will go you will return not in the battle you will perish.” If you put the comma before “not,” the individual will live. If you put the comma after “not,” the individual will die in battle.

Mandy: Hmm. So even if the stakes aren’t as high as death, meaning is sacrificed when punctuation and standardized usage rules are ignored. Guess we’ve just provided job security for proofreaders everywhere.

Jake: Well, let’s just keep this between us until I sell all my Derrida books on eBay. Cool?

So I’m just finishing up one of the most fascinating books that was given to me by one of my colleagues, Amanda Vande Brake. The book is The Culture Code. Without going into hundreds of lil nuances and details, the basic summary is that the book takes a psychoanalysis rollercoaster and multi-layered adventure into how a consumer’s individual unique culture, personal experiences and life patterns define the way they respond to brands as well as to marketing in general.

I think the most fascinating portion of the book was in fact not the outcomes, but simply the process and journey that author, renowned cultural anthropologist Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, takes his test subjects through as he delves into how their own behaviors, thoughts and relationships with various test products (i.e. cars, ceral, wine, etc). Him and I share a common belief. Ignore what people “tell” you in a workshop, survey or focus group because more often then not they lie, are easily influenced or just don’t really remember or have an opinion on the information you are trying to get out of them. Instead, Dr. Rapaille says to focus instead on the common structure of stories that your test subjects reveal.

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There’s been a lot of talk lately on the value of social networking tools, sites, blogs, blah, blah, blah… and it starts me wondering, “How do you build community?” Seriously. So, the social scientist in me takes over and I begin to digg into this deli.icio.us question and see what the rest of the oncomm has to say about it. I’m sure if the information is out there, by now I must have reddit.

This concept of building community sounds great, especially to marketing types who see this as a way to generate traffic “for free” but kind of breaks down when it comes to actually starting to build. Lets consider for a moment the reasons why we might “build community” purely for marketing reasons and then we’ll dive into perhaps the factors that actually drive community which might give us some insight into how community actually gets built.

• TRAFFIC-> Interesting content means interested visitors, right?
• KNOWLEDGE -> Sharing or obtaining. If you write it, they will come.

Now, let’s think about what these factors mean to community.

First, we should probably establish the difference between traffic and community. Amazon.com gets a ton of traffic and plenty of comments and feedback on products. Does it have “community” or “web2.0″ features? Is it a “social networking” site? Hardly. It’s pretty clear that traffic isn’t community. Next let’s consider knowledge sharing and community. For this let me use the example of, well… how about Micro$oft. Like many other software vendors, the redmond elite have used their online presence to produce a great deal of “knowledge” to be shared with the world. This certainly generates a certain amount of “traffic” and “content” but again, hardly creates “community.”

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