gapingvoid: "cartoons drawn on the back of business cards"

social objects for beginners

As y'all will know, I'm fond of talking about "Social Objects" and how they pertain to "Marketing 2.0". Even so, some people still get confused by what a Social Object actually is. So I wrote the following to clarify some more:

The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else. Human beings are social animals. We like to socialize. But if think about it, there needs to be a reason for it to happen in the first place. That reason, that "node" in the social network, is what we call the Social Object.

Example A. You and your friend, Joe like to go bowling every Tuesday. The bowling is the Social Object.

Example B. You and your friend, Lee are huge Star Wars fans. Even though you never plan to do so, you two tend to geek out about Darth Vader and X-Wing fighters every time you meet. Star Wars is the Social Object.

Example C. You’ve popped into your local bar for a drink after work. At the bar there’s some random dude, sending a text on this neat-looking cellphone you’ve never seen before. So you go up to him and ask him about the phone. The random dude just LOVES his new phone, so has no trouble with telling a stranger about his new phone for hours on end. Next thing you know, you two are hitting it off and you offer to buy him a beer. You spend the rest of the next hour geeking out about the new phone, till it’s time for you to leave and go dine with your wife. The cellphone was the social object.

Example D. You’re a horny young guy at a party, in search of a mate. You see a hot young woman across the room. You go up and introduce yourself. You do not start the conversation by saying, “Here’s a list of all the girls I've gone to bed with, and some recent bank statements showing you how much money I make. Would you like to go to bed with me?” No, something more subtle happens. Basically, like all single men with an agenda, you ramble on like a yutz for ten minutes, making small talk. Until she mentions the name of her favorite author, Saul Bellow. Halleluiah! As it turns out, Saul Bellow happens to be YOUR FAVORITE AUTHOR as well [No, seriously. He really is. You’re not making it up just to look good.]. Next thing you know, you two are totally enveloped in this deep and meaningful conversation about Saul Bellow. “Seize The Day”, "Herzog", “Him With His Foot In His Mouth” and “Humbolt’s Gift”, eat your heart out. And as you two share a late-night cab back to her place, you're thinking about how Saul Bellow is the Social Object here.

Example E. You’re an attractive young woman, married to a very successful Hedge Fund Manager in New York’s Upper East Side. Because your husband does so well, you don’t actually have to hold down a job for a living. But you still earned a Cum Laude from Dartmouth, so you need to keep your brain occupied. So you and your other Hedge Fund Wife friends get together and organise this very swish Charity Ball at the Ritz Carleton. You’ve guessed it; the Charity Ball is the Social Object.

Example F. After a year of personal trauma, you decide that yes, indeed, Jesus Christ is your Personal Saviour. You’ve already joined a Bible reading class and started attending church every Sunday. Next thing you know, you’ve made a lot of new friends in your new congregation. Suddenly you are awash with a whole new pile of Social Objects. Jesus, Church, The Bible, the Church Picnics, the choir rehearsals, the Christmas fund drive, the cookies and coffee after the 11 o'clock service, yes, all of them are Social Objects for you and new friends to share.

Example G. You’ve been married for less than a year, and already your first child is born. In the last year, you and your spouse have acquired three beautiful new Social Objects: The marriage, the firstborn, and your own new family. It’s what life’s all about.

There. I’ve given you seven examples. But I could give THOUSANDS more. But there’s no need to. The thing to remember is, Human beings do not socialize in a completely random way. There’s a tangible reason for us being together, that ties us together. Again, that reason is called the Social Object. Social Networks form around Social Objects, not the other way around.

Another thing to remember is the world of Social Objects can have many layers. As with any complex creature, there can be more than one reason for us to be together. So anybody currently dating a cute girl who’s into not just Saul Bellow, but also into bowling and cellphones and Star Wars and swish Charity Balls as well, will know what I mean.

The final thing to remember is that, Social Objects by themselves don’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Sure, it’s nice hanging out with Lee talking about Star Wars. But if Star Wars had never existed, you’d probably still enjoy each other’s company for other reasons, if they happened to present themselves. Human beings matter. Being with other human beings matter. And since the dawn of time until the end of time, we use whatever tools we have at hand to make it happen.

[Afterthought:] As I'm fond of saying, nothing about Social Objects is rocket science. Then again, there's nothing about "Love" that is rocket science, either. That doesn't mean it can't mess with your head. Rock on.

[Link:] Mark Earls has some nice thoughts on this, as well. "Things change because of people interacting with other people, rather than technology or design really doing things to people."

[N.B. "Social Objects" is a term I did not coin myself, but was turned onto by the anthropolgist and Jaiku founder, Jyri Engestrom.]

how big is your audience? [revisited]

As the market for blog and Web 2.0 media keeps on maturing, I thought this gapingvoid post from August, 2006 was worth a revisit:

I get asked a lot about how many people read my blog.

I have no idea. Because the answer, of course, depends on what metric you use. What stat counter you use. Anything between x-thousand and x-thousand-times-ten visitors per day, depending on which robot you wish to believe.

I tend to believe the lower figures more than the higher ones, but hey, that's just me.

But "How many people read your blog per day" is not the same thing as "How big is your audience."

Let me explain.

The number of blogs I read on a daily basis numbers about a dozen. The number of blogs I read every couple of days numbers about ten times that figure.

But the number of blogs I read regularly, just not that often, is way, way, way higher than that. Many thousands of them.

Dave Weinberger is a good example. I like his blog, I like him, I value what he has to say, however for one reason or another I don't read his blog that often. Maybe a couple of times a month. Maybe only once a month. It's nothing personal, it's like he said in a very entertaining post last year:

No, I'm not keeping up with your blog.

I would like to. I really would. I like it and I like you.

But we're now well past the point where any of us can keep up with all the blogs worth reading from the people worth keeping up with. Even with an aggregator.

I just can't do it any more.

So, although I don't read his blog that often, he is on my radar, and I consider him somebody who continues to inform and influence my worldview. As a result, I consider myself very much part of his audience.

Another way to think about this is akin to a favorite rock band. You may not listen to their recordings every day, but pull out their music every so often, when your life needs a dose of their particular brand of inspiration. They might not be a daily fix, but they're nonetheless a regular and important part of your life.

So following this logic, I'm guessing there are a lot of people who read me in the same manner that I read Weinberger. I may not be part of their daily fix, but they are part of my audience nonetheless.

If you accept this logic, then suddenly my audience starts looking much larger. And so do the audiences of many other bloggers.

It's just a pity this metric isn't one that advertisers find particularly useful, or else a lot more bloggers would be making money.

[Note To Self: I would be really interested to hear Stowe Boyd's take on this.]

My take on this, one year later? I'll have to concur with JP Rangaswami, who reminded me on Twitter that, "if 'traffic' is what you want, then more cartoons may mean more traffic. If you want connections and relationships, that's harder." I also concur with our mutual friend, Doc Searls, who doesn't like describing the people who read his blog as his "readers" or "audience". They're not "eyeballs", for heaven's sake. They're just people he knows. Life is short enough without imposing corporate metrics onto your friends etc etc. Sure, for convenience's sake we'll all use the words "audience", "readers", "traffic" etc. But they're not words that do a particularly good job of getting to the meat of things.

[Update:] I describe blogs in the comments below: "A simple device to stay on people's radar screens in a hopefully meaningful way." It works for me etc.

it's been a big week for TV 2.0

It's been a big week for TV 2.0.

First, I wrote a blog post about Microsoft's intentions within this space:

Whatever TV becomes in the next century, Microsoft wants to own it. Or at least, own a huge chunk of it. And that battle will be fought and won [or lost] sometime in the next decade.

Then Dave Winer wrote about his new Mac Mini TV product, "Flikrfan":

It's all about pictures...

Pictures from your Flickr contacts...

High-def pics from professional photographers around the world...

Your family and business associates...

All ready for your new Mac Mini and high-def TV.

And then Robert Scoble Scoble wrote about Flickrfan:

But we all notice a trend: hooking MacMinis up to your HTDV. I think it’s a revolution. Revolutions always start small and among the weirdos.

Great stuff. Mac Mini + TV. The Glorious Revolution for 2008 etc.

Funny, it turns out Jon Husband was writing about the same thing in January, 2006:

While always discreet about its future projects, we are waiting for Apple to unveil in 2006 a media computer … the Mac Mini Media.

Rock on, Jon.

microsoft and chess pieces

I first learned how to play chess when I was about eight years old. I remember feeling quite frustrated, after my Uncle Donald had taken every one of my pieces except for my King, how the latter, as the last remaining of my pieces on the board, surrounded by Uncle Donald's rooks and knights closing in for the kill, seemed so utterly impotent in the face of impending doom. My King was able to move in any direction, yet he was so unable to save his poor self from the final kill. If the King was so important, why did he not have more compelling powers at his disposal? For a poor eight-year old, it all seemed terribly unfair.

Then about the three years ago I learned the history of chess pieces, and why they move the way they do. It answered a lot of my questions. I wrote a blog post about it.

5. The Queen. The Queen's entourage was always looked after by a small, elite, highly trained bodyguard. The imperative to protect the women and children was very strong. If trouble was afoot it needed to get the hell out of Dodge very quickly. Ergo the bodyguard was very mobile and very deadly. It needed to be.

6. The King, though powerful and free to choose any direction he wanted, was heavily laden with the apparatus of State. The King could not just drop everything and flee; he had the court, the treasury and the ministers weighing him down. So his movements were fairly limited.

The King, being the Head Honcho, could move in any direction he pleased. But because he had so much accumulated baggage, he couldn't move very far. Unlike my opponent's gallant rooks and knights surrounding him.

I often see parallels between the King chess piece, and a company I have not only have worked for in the past, but also have a great deal of affection for i.e. Microsoft. A market cap worth tens of billions, annual sales of tens of billions, a vast army of employees needing paid, a vast army of shareholders needing dividends, and and vast, vast, vast LEGION of smart, capable and equally ruthless folk who would like nothing better than to see them permanently fall on their faces. And how do they mange to keep all these wolves from the door? By arranging groups of ones and zeros into a particular order, and getting other people to pay for them. The logistics are are off the scale.

People often question my motives for working with Microsoft, which any cynic would say is not really that surprising. Quips of me being "Assimilated by The Borg", or me being a "Shameless Blog Whore" are often thrown my way. Of course, what these people don't realize [not that they've ever asked], is that I make a lot more money with my far less controversial small business projects- The money I've made from Microsoft in the last year would account for less than 10% of my total income. I could make a lot more money without Microsoft, I just choose not to.

Why? Because perhaps, just perhaps, the question, "How does a lone King stay alive, let alone win the game, when surrounded by so many opponent's bloodthirsty rooks and knights?" is a topic that I find fundamentally interesting. As would any sane person who has been operating in the real world for more than six months. This is partly what The Blue Monster is all about. Rock on.

de-boxing the computer: microsoft's next big idea [part 3]

My Microsoft friend, Bruce Lynn, left the following comment in my previous post, "TV 2.0: Microsoft's Next Big Idea".

This topic is so last century (as Steve points out). People always want to know 'where' Microsoft will move next. But, Microsoft has always been very transparent about its aspirations and vision: 'A computer in every home and on every desk'. The key word is 'computer'. Wherever the 'computer' goes, Microsoft will seek to go to provide commerical software to support them. Into the datacentre, on the road in phones, in cars and yes, in the living rooms with TVs and consoles.

TVs are interesting because (a) they are still underserved by software to enhance the experience (though DVRs have changed that a lot, there is still a lot of debate how much software which adds inter-ACTIVITY can enhance a largely passive, ie. inactive experience), and (b) they are a popular electronic device for the digital Late Majority (but if anything the GenX and GenY folks are watching less TV than ever).

Hugh had it right months ago. The interesting story is not about the 'where', it's about the 'how', ie. Software+Services.

Sometimes I think that when TV 2.0 comes along, it actually won't have any TV component in it. Just as "Horse 2.0" [i.e. the car] has no actual horses.

Having given this some thought over the last couple of days, I feel myself shifting my thinking away from "The Box".

I've been using computers for twenty years or so. And all along, I've tended to think of computer in terms of "boxes". A box on my desk [PC]. A box in the cloud [My dedicated server]. A box of music in my pocket [My iPod]. Another wee box to phone people with [my Nokia]. And when it comes to living room entertainment, we have boxes all over the place [TVs, stereos, DVD players etc.]. With clever little wires to link all these boxes up. A personal network of boxes, as it were.

It wasn't until I saw the Microsoft Surface console in Paris that I really started started thinking [PLEASE excuse the pun] "Outside The Box". Do we really need all these boxes? Or at least, do we really need so many of them? Perhaps the barriers that separate everyday objects from software are woefully artificial?

Apple is a company I really like. I own both a Macbook and an iPod. They do indeed make lovely boxes. But ever since I saw the Microsoft Surface, it's where "The Box" ISN'T that has become so interesting to me.

[AFTERTHOUGHT:] "Ubiquitous Software Equals Ubiquitous Media." Advertisers, take note.

tv coke cans: microsoft's next big idea [part 2]

[Microsoft Surface, which I saw last time in Paris.]

In my recent post, I talked about Microsoft's "next being idea" as thus:

Whatever TV becomes in the next century, Microsoft wants to own it. Or at least, own a huge chunk of it. And that battle will be fought and won [or lost] sometime in the next decade.

Then an anonymous commenter quite rightly pointed out: "Sorry but the real battlefield is mobile phones (compare growth of mobile phones vs. desktop vs. TV and you will see my point)..." To which I replied:

Anonymous, yeah, phones is another big one. Of course, I did say, "Whatever TV becomes", and you could argue that maybe the TV and the phone will evolve into a third ubiquitous thing.

And then lets not forget other household items- fridges, tables, AC units and the like.

Which explains why seeing the new Microsoft Surfaces table in Paris the other month, when Steve Ballmer made his big announcement about Microsoft entering the ad game on a major scale, got me thinking.

Why did it appear then and there? During that announcement? I knew something was up, but at the time could not find the words for it. Until now.

Here's what I'm thinking. Though I'm not techie, technology obviously plays big part of my life. Mainly through interfacing with my [1] laptop [a Macbook], [2] my MP3 music player [an iPod], [3] and a telephone [Nokia]. I don't own a TV, but I could see one day owning [4] Apple TV or an Xbox, i.e. something for the living room. And then when I'm working in an office, there are [5] the company servers; something I know very little about.

So basically, when people like me interact directly with computers, it's mostly via these 5 main objects. Laptop, iPod, cellphone, the living room entertainment TV thing, and the office servers.

But remember, Microsoft Surface is just in its infancy. Right now it's just about $30K coffee tables. But give it ten years, it could be something much more cheaper and ubiquitous. Instead, we could be surfing the net not just on TV screens, laptops and hand-held devices, but on cocktail tables in bars. Or the mirror in our dressing room. Or bathroom tiles in the shower. On vacuum cleaners. Or even on the sides of Coke cans.

People my age, when they think of TV, they think of a nice big box in the living room. Some of us are just beginning to think of TV in terms of something we watch on our computers.

But something on the side of a Coke can?

You may intelligently argue the iPod beats the Zune. You may intelligently argue that Gmail beats Outlook Express. You may intelligently argue that Sun's open source servers run better than Microsoft servers. And you may also intelligently argue that Mcrosoft's new advertising plan won't beat out AdSense. Not everybody may agree with, but hey, as long as you can hold your own, nobody's going to accuse you of being stupid, either.

But let's see what happens with Surfaces, bathroom tiles and Coke cans, before we consign Microsoft to the dustbin of history. And let's see what their competitors come up with as well, in the meantime.

Microsoft's "Software + Services" may not be a big idea for some. "Software + Services + Surfaces + Advertising" is a far more interesting an idea to me.

[YouTube: Jeff Han's seminal demo at TED, via Chris Lehman.]

without fear, hollywood has no viable business model: the t.v. writer's strike

I've been watching the American TV writer's strike with great interest.

Back in 1999-2000 I spent 5 months in Hollywood, helping a friend out with his "New Media" dotcom [The latter failed miserably, of course, but that's another story]. Having seen the Media landscape evolve so dramatically since then, I have some thoughts on the dispute:

1. What struck me most about living in LA was how nobody talked about "Art". They wanted to talk about "The Industry". Somebody you knew getting a job on the set of Spiderman 3 or Stuart Little 2 was considered hot stuff... even if they were not films you or anyone else you knew would ever want to see yourselves [i.e. even if the movie was kinda lame]. And the equivalent existed in the TV world.

It didn't take me very long to figure out: Hollywood is a factory town. In terms of social hierarchies, it was no different that Detroit, only instead of Ford and GM, we had Universal and Disney. And the guys I knew in it, for all their flashy cars and expensive gym memberships, were nothing more than glorified factory workers. Working on an assembly line. Shipping widgets [in the form of "movies" and "shows"] off to theaters and TV stations around the country. And indeed, they had EXACTLY the same kind of industrial alienation from their craft as the factory workers that Marx and Engels wrote about, over a century before.

2. For all the different kinds of "creative" people in the system, Hollywood has the most rigid class system I have ever encountered. With "The Players" at the top [Spielberg, Lucas, Brad Pitt, Angela Jolie etc], the grunts and the unemployed "Talent" at the bottom, and in between the middle guys: Writers, lawyers, agents, techies, all engaged in a massive cat-fight to get on top, or at least, get on top of their current peer group. It was a very well-mapped-out pyramid. Which is what made meeting people such a foggy experience. They knew that if you could figure out where on the pyramid you lay [not a hard thing to do in under thirty seconds], they'd feel exposed and vulnerable. And the writers I knew, for all the yakkin' I heard about "the integrity" of their craft, were as every bit as complicit in preserving the pyramid scheme as anyone else I met.

In a recent Twitter conversation, Loren Feldman said to me: "I did 10 years in Hollywood, it's a system based on fear, always has been." I agree. And I think it will always be thus. Without fear, Hollywood has no viable business model. Without a large group of young, hungry people willing to take the pyramid/privilege model seriously, Hollywood has no business model. Privilege and fear are never far from one another.

3. In the last 20 years, we've seen an evolution of non-print Media away from "Theatrical" [Both cinema and TV are forms of theater], towards interactive. And the main consequences of that, besides media becoming a two-way conversation instead of a one-way conversation, has made the barriers to entry into creating "Media" a lot lower. And the people who are feeling the pain are the ones who spent the last decade or so trying to figure the pyramid scheme in a time when the world was a different place.

4. In the end, this strike is not about DVD and digital royalties. Ultimately, this strike is about the massive and traumatic erosion of privileges afforded the middle-ranking factory workers. But of course, there's not a damn thing they or their bosses can do to bring those privileges back. The landscape of media is moving away from large studios, to college dorms, downtown lofts, and suburban garages. Like Madison Avenue, Hollywood won't disappear. But also like Madison Avenue, it'll never command the cultural vanguard like it once did.

My conclusion? The ice cap is melting, and all we're seeing here is the penguins deciding to hold a picket line. In news terms, it makes for good theater. But like Hollywood, that's all it is.

[UPDATE:] Thanks to Andrew Denny for leaving the following comment:

Director Mike Figgis made some similar points (and predicted a collapse of the existing Hollywood model) in a wonderful talk on BBC Radio 3 last month entitled: "Is there too much culture?" [55 minutes long]

Just listened to it. Awesome stuff.

merry christmas, everybody!

[Link:] Personent Hodie.

1. Personent hodie
voces puerulae,
laudantes iucunde
qui nobis est natus,
summo Deo datus,
et de virgineo ventre procreatus.

2. in mundo nascitur,
pannis involvitur
praesepi ponitur
stabulo brutorum,
rector supernorum.
perdidit spolia princeps infernorum.

3. magi tres venerunt,
parvulum inquirunt,
parvulum inquirunt,
stellulam sequendo,
ipsum adorando,
aurum, thus, et myrrham ei offerendo.

4. omnes clericuli,
pariter pueri,
cantent ut angeli:
advenisti mundo,
laudes tibi fundo.
ideo gloria in excelsis Deo.

Merry Christ-Mass, Everybody.

please add me to your google reader friend list

I've recently started using the Google Reader quite avidly. My shared items are here. Please add me to your friend list so I can see what you're reading, too. Rock on.

TV 2.0: Microsoft's next big idea

For the last couple of years, I've been asking the question, "What's Microsoft's next big idea?"

What comes after Windows, Office and paid software? What comes after Open Source reaching critical mass?

Most of the answers I got, from both inside and outside the company, were pretty vague. The certainly didn't feel all that convincing.

Then I went to Paris a few weeks ago and the pieces of the puzzle started to come together: "Madison Avenue, you work for Redmond Now."

And then today I saw this article on CNET: "Microsoft quietly combines TV efforts."

Suddenly I had a moment of clarity.

My geek friends and I spend a lot of time in front of our computers, sitting at our desks. So when we see the tech battles being fought, we see the desktop as the primary battlefield.

Suddenly it hits home. The next big tech war won't be fought on the desktop, like it was back in the 1980s. It'll be fought in the living room.

My guess is, whatever TV becomes in the next century, Microsoft wants to own it. Or at least, own a huge chunk of it. And that battle will be fought and won [or lost] sometime in the next decade.

Anybody got a better idea, let's hear it.

[UPDATE:] Microsoft's Steve Clayton just sent me a message on Twitter:

"@gapingvoid of course the fact that we began investing in the future of TV over 10 years ago will be lost on most"

Exactly.

cartoons as "social objects"

very sexy

all light

[Merry Christmas, Everybody!!!!]

so what's all this new marketing stuff, anyway?

Some people call it "The New Marketing". Some people call it "Marketing 2.0". Whatever name you care to give it, I get asked about it a lot. Here are some random thoughts, in no particular order.

1. "The New Marketing" came about because of two unstoppable forces: [A] The invention of the internet and [B] the beginning of the demise of what Seth Godin calls the "TV-Industrial Complex". Thanks to the internet, as Clay Shirky famously stated in 2004, "the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast." While this was going on, large companies found out that people were starting to ignore their ads. We have too many choices, too many good choices, and we've gotten too good at ignoring messages.

2. Seth Godin is quite rightly the world's most respected writer on marketing. That being said, a lot of people haven't heard of Mark Earls yet. They're both friends of mine, so I don't want to compare them too much. Seth is a master of taking complicated ideas and presenting them in a way that any Average Joe can understand. Mark is more of a Marketing Geek's geek. His stuff makes uncomfortable reading for anyone in marketing who hasn't been stretching himself lately.

3. The most important asset in The New Marketing is "having something worth talking about". This makes certain marketing people squeamish. A lot of us grew up in an era of flashy commercials for rather uninspiring products, and something in our DNA makes us believe that's the proper way to go about things.

4. If I had one big insight from the last year, is how The New Marketing has everything to do with how your product or service acts as a "Social Object". Kudos to Jyri Engestrom for turning me on to it.

5. My second big insight from this year was learning that, even with a fairly everyday product, you can create social objects simply by using your products to make social gestures. That's what we did with Stormhoek. The message wasn't, "Here's why you should buy our wine". The message was, "We think you're kinda cool, and we like what you're doing. We'd like to be part of it, somehow." And much to everyone's surprise, it worked rather well.

6. Blogs were the big story for 2005. YouTube for 2006. Facebook for 2007. What's the big story for 2008? I have no idea. Nor do I think it matters. For the big story, really, is always going to be the same. Websites comes and go, but "Cheap, Easy, Global, Hyperlinked Media" will be with us forever, save for Nuclear Holocaust.

7. A lot of what fuels The New Marketing is quite simply, the most important word in the English Language: "Love". It's hard to get someone to read your website if you're not passionate about your subject matter.

8. I'm trying to train myself to avoid "Microsmosis" i.e. mistaking of a microcosm for the entire cosmos. If you got all your news from blogs, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there are just two phone companies- Apple and Nokia. But Sony, Motorola, LG and Samsung sell a lot of phones, too. Just not to our friends.

9. My Definition of "Web 3.0": Learning how to use the web properly without it taking over your life. I'm not holding my breath.

10. Why is it so hard to explain The New Marketing to large companies? Because the people who work there are simply not prepared to relinquish the idea of control. Live by metrics, die by metrics etc.

11. I find all this more interesting when I don't take it too seriously. Like all things internet, it's far too easy to get carried away.

[UPDATE:] Robert Scoble leaves an interesting comment:

Friends are going to be the big story in 2008. Here's a post about why it's wrong that I'm a gatekeeper between my friends and you.

the blue monster express

There's a Blue Monster bus driving bloggers from Silicon Valley to C.E.S. in Vegas on January 5th. I'll be riding it, so will some other friends of mine. Robert Scoble has the skinny.

I wonder if, when Hugh Macleod started drawing little cartoons on the backs of business cards that he ever expected that one of them would be on the side of a bus? Can a bus be a “social object?” (That’s Hugh’s term for making something interesting enough to talk about. For instance, a bus? Not interesting. A blue monster express? Interesting!)

We’ll be driving this bus from Silicon Valley to Las Vegas on Saturday, January 5. We’ll have lots of streaming video and all that with tons of interesting bloggers and other people. Mogulus is helping Rocky and me produce a live video show from the bus too.

The bus will also be driving bloggers around CES during the show, especially between the main hall and the BlogHaus.

The bus was put together by Microsoft and the groovy cats at Podtech.

post-dreaming reality

I was thinking today about how, after a decade or two working for a living, one reaches what I call the "Post-Dreaming Reality".

Every kid wants to be a rock star one day, in whatever industry she chooses to call her own.

One day I'll be a filmmaker! One day I'll be a famous artist! One day I'll be a CEO! One day I'll be a Creative Director! One day I'll be a Venture Capitalist! And so forth.

Then you get to a certain age and you realize that the time for "One Day" is over. You're either doing it, or you're not. And if you're not, a feeling of bitter disappointment starts hitting you deep into the marrow. Which explains why we all know so many people in their 30s and 40s having mid-life crisis'.

The other day, someone fifteen years younger than me asked me what I wanted to be "One Day".

I answered, "Doing exactly what I'm doing now, just with more money. And if the money doesn't come, well, that's a shame, but it's not the end of the world, either."

No more dreaming of "One Day". I am here and now. This is it. I can highly recommend it. But I had to kill a lot of dreams, a lot of beautiful dreams, in order to get there.

[Apropos:] Bruce Lynn's "The Death of Dreams".

E.R.P. vs. B.R.P. or, is s.a.p. about to buy thingamy?

For the last couple of years I've been a very minor shareholder in my friend, Sigurd Rinde's ERP software company, Thingamy.

Not being the ERP business, Sig doesn't tell me much about what's going on with Thingamy. Seems to me he has spent the last year or so mainly in his cave, tinkering away.

Then suddenly I'm noticing a whoosh of thought-provoking activity in the blogosphere.

1. First, Sigurd posts about the difference between ERP [ he calls it, "Easily Repeatable Processes"] and what he calls BRP ["Barely Repeatable Processes"}:

I. The Easily Repeatable Process (ERP for me)

Processes that handles resources, from human (hiring, firing, payroll and more) to parts and products through supply chains, distribution and production. The IT systems go under catchy names like ERP, SCM, PLM, SRM, CRM and the biggest players are as we know SAP and Oracle plus a long roster of smaller firms.

[...]

II. The Barely Repeatable Process (BRP)

Typically exceptions to the ERPs, anything that involves people in non-rigid flows through education, health, support, government, consulting or the daily unplanned issues that happens in every organisation. The activities that employees spend most of their time on every day. Processes that often starts with an e-mail or a call. A process volume, measured by time and resource spent at organisations, probably larger than for the Easily Repeatable Processes.

2. Then I notice our mutual friend, James Governor picking up on it:

According to Sig, ERP actually stands for Easily Repeatable Process: "Processes that handle resources, from human (hiring, firing, payroll and more) to parts and products through supply chains, distribution and production. Known to be rigid, but handle events and transactions with precision and in volume. Systems deliver value through extensive reports and full control over resources. Resource oriented, transactional, event driven systems. Delivered by system vendors with roots in accounting using up to 25 year old technological solutions." But Sigurde is far more interested in the Barely Repeatable Process (BRP): "Typically exceptions to the ERPs, anything that involves people in non-rigid flows [like] the daily unplanned issues that happen in every organisation. The activities that employees spend most of their time on every day. Processes that often start with an e-mail or a call.

3. Then it seems the former Editor of Harvard Business Review, Nick Carr has picked up on it, as well:

Governor quotes Doug Merritt, a guy from SAP who apparently has been up in the alps with Sig recently: "I don’t worry about IBM and Oracle. I worry about Google, Amazon, and Facebook." Then again, Merritt says, "the 'consumer' companies haven’t fully realised the change that’s upon us yet." Bingo twice over. You need the BRP for the people and you need the ERP for the institution - and you need them tied together in a seamless web-wise bundle with a pretty ribbon that doesn't scream "software!" at you. Governor thinks the twain shall meet in SAP's upcoming offerings. "SAP delivering 37Signals ad-hoc collaboration with real enterprise process data and objects is sexy," he says: "'Wow. We only just hooked up - and you’re going to let me see your … purchase order …'”

So what's going on? Is there some kind of new paradigm I don't know about? Is BRP the future of whatever? Is SAP trying to long-term outflank of Microsoft and Oracle? I have no idea. Sig won't tell me one way or the other, mainly because of the relatively high volume of readers I get on my blog, as he simply doesn't want too many people finding out too much about Thingamy too quickly.

But I do know, from reading his blog, that he's been up to see the boys at SAP a few times this year, with flights and hotels paid for by them.

My guess is that Sig is in talks with SAP about acquiring Thingamy, or at least, having talks about having talks. My guess is that some people within SAP sees some kind of unrealized future in BRM. I look forward to Sigurd giving us the skinny.

[Afterthought:] Whilst we were talking about my involvement with Microsoft, Sig said to me, "Everybody misunderstands Microsoft because they think they're in the Consumer software business. They're not. They're in the Enterprise business." Food for thought etc.

naked conversations

[Cartoon dedicated to my friend, the dauntless Robert Scoble.]

[Seesmic Post:] "Are 'Mosquitoes' a good Metaphor for Web 2.0?"

thank you from cumbria

I made a wee video diary entry with my friend, Loic LeMeur's video tool, Seesmic.

[UPDATE:] Just left the following note on Twitter: "No, I am not having a meltdown. I'm more like the New England hostess who decides to move the party indoors, because of all the mosquitoes." Pretty much sums it up.

goodnight

Just posted the following on Twitter:

Just arrived in Cumbria. As promised, I'm about to hit the sack and go sleep for a month. Goodnight.

blogging is dead? according to whom?

As a blogger, the last three years have been interesting ones, to say the least.

2005 was the year blogs came of age. For a lot of people around me at the time, the key moment was when Businessweek's now-legendary article, "Blogging Will Change Your Business" made the front cover. Suddenly we no longer felt like we were mere hobbyists and unemployed consultants typing away in our pyjamas, trying to prove how smart we were to a cold, indifferent world. Suddenly what we were doing mattered. Suddenly the Big Media was an ally in our personal path to glory, not a hindrance.

2006 was the year of "Web 2.0". Suddenly we saw sites like MySpace, Digg and YouTube get more and more attention. For the first time in ages you could utter the term, "User-Generated Content" without all the girls laughing at you.

2007 has been all about :"Social Networks". With Facebook leading the charge, suddenly who you know seems far more interesting to the journalists than what you know. Screw the nodes, it's now all about the network, People. All about "The Social Graph", People. We no longer worry about what we have to say, we worry about who's controlling our data. We no longer talk about folk we know, like and admire, and what they're up to, we talk about hot-shot startups and how many billions Microsoft is going to pay for them.

Of course, you realize this is all crap.

If you have something to say, then a blog offers a cheap, easy global medium in which to express yourself. This is as true now as it was three years ago, regardless of what the groovy cats in Silicon Valley may be up to.

Whether you have the time and the talent for it, "i.e. the skill and the will", is another matter altogether. Also, whether other people will want to read it, is something one has little control over. But in both cases, the same is true for all other media.

So whether the now-famous Mark Zuckerberg sells Facebook for $15billion or $5billion [or something much less, fancy that], the fact remains, we all have our own lives to get on with, our own bills to pay. And that means interacting in the adult world of commerce somehow. Everyone has to get paid.

And it's much easier to do the latter if one is good at building one's own personal brand, independent of one's job title.

Me? I prefer my brand to be a "global microbrand". It's easy and it's flexible. It's not tied down to one geographical locale, which I've always found to be financially unreliable. So business is a bit slow around here in England. No matter. I'll head over to Redmond, Washington, and do a gig for Microsoft if I have to. New York? Sure. Houston? If they pay me enough.

So that's why I have a blog, I suppose. I like the control. I write something, I post it, it gets read, hopefully good things happen as a result, somewhere on this small blue planet of ours. Unlike a book or a movie or a TV commercial, there's no waiting around for somebody else to greenlight it. The only light is the greenlight.

Sure, I hear you saying, "But the scale is so small." I don't know about that. At last count [and this was a couple of years ago] the "How To Be Creative" page had been downloaded a quarter of a million times. And Lord knows how many copies of the "ChangeThis" PDF version were printed out and circulated. Most hardbacks are lucky if they sell three thousand copies. Granted, movies get seen by a lot of people, but only for a week or two.Then they leave the cinema and are mostly consigned to a lonely life on the DVD rack. And they're expensive and take years to make. They have a lot, I mean A LOT of downtime. Whereas a blog is constantly working, constantly growing. I like that.

I guess my point is, if you're one of these people considering giving up on blogging in exchange for paying more attention to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace, or whatever they throw at us mere mortals, bear in mind you are giving up on something rather unique and wonderful. But I would say that.

stormhoek sponsoring the british comedy awards

[One of the thirty cartoons chosen to go on the bottles etc.]

Though Stormhoek generally doesn't like to sponsor large events, an interesting opportunity came up.

On December 5th we'll be serving Magnums of Stormhoek on the tables of the British Comedy Awards, which is British Media terms, is a pretty big deal. Lots of celebrities, TV cameras and paparazzi etc.

But rather than just plonk the bottles down on the tables and let the celebs get on with it [i.e. Drink our wine, yet ignore the brand completely- which is what normally happens with these kind of events], we decided to behave a little differently than your average gala sponsor.

We created a range of large bottles [Magnums], each with a different cartoon on it. Thirty cartoons in all.

Because of the event, we decided we didn't have to worry about playing it safe [unlike say, with your average supermarket client]. So out of my collection of 6,000-odd cartoons, we picked 30 cartoon that were relatively edgy. The one above is a good example. Also, some of the cartoons from this page and this page made it into the mix. Generally, we picked cartoons we thought anybody who had spent a lot of time in the Soho/London/media/entertainment/cokewhore/glamorpussy world would click with. You get the idea.

As everybody will have a different cartoon on each table, we're hoping people will check out the different bottles on the other tables. Yeah, you got it. Conversation starters. Exactly. "Social Objects", Baby.

I hope the photographers get some decent pictures...

wake up

untitled 446

slightly crazy

please let me be

great anguish

a good piece of meat

ella fitzgerald

crazy cathedral

[Drew this cartoon outside Sagrada Familia when I was in Barcelona the other week. Later it occurred to me that Sagrada F. is not technically a cathedral, but a church. Life is suffering etc.]