Essays - Latest Comments

Re: Seeing “Henry V”

Hitgrove — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 08:11:54 -0000

yea... ahahahahaha....

Re: Seeing “Henry V”

Viktor Ovurmind — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 17:32:48 -0000

ADDENDUM 27 JAN 2012 : Contemplation of "Hitgrove's" Comment
"yea... ahahahahaha..." is this a koan, a level of consciousness that is presently not discernible to an infidel like me. I am trying to fathom this response and all I can think is how comparatively unenlightened I am to this entity who has responded. "ahahahahaha" is difficult for me to spell, since it contains 5 h's and 6 a's. I feel humbled by this combination for the number of letters adds up to 11. I know that the number 11 is the very number that is featured in the movie "Spinal Tap". Alas, I took can only max my mind to 10.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

I consider myself therefore not worthy to be in the same presence as the one that refers to himself as "Hitgrove", so I bow in absolute awe, I kneel before the great one - It is clear I must start to seek my inner child, yea... ahahahahaha - in comparison I am nothing, for I have to still count the a's and h's to type this.

Thanks mate :-)

END OF ADDENDUM . . .

Your write up makes me think of Michael Boyd's recent interview on Charlie Rose. There is a beautiful bit at about 38 minutes where Boyd talks about "reading" plays in a scholarly way and what he says here does create a foundation of how he see's Shakespeare, which is basically the rest of the interview before 38 minutes and after the 38th minute.

Charlie Rose Interview with Michael Boyd - Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company
http://www.charlierose.com/vie...

There are so many ways one can experience Shakespeare but I do like the way Boyd tries to create Shakespeare from his experience. I would rather go to a Shakespeare play that has bad acoustics and average actors than to a play which absorbs a few hours of my life but there is nothing to return to, but just a disposable and consumable theatrical experience.

It is funny how when I was younger I was invited into theatrical productions and took them for granted, unable to grasp the magic of theater, and now when I am too busy even for blogs and tweets, I look forward to those moments when I can take rare opportunities to watch productions. I guess why I like Shakespeare is that he understood at such great depths the human condition, in a way where I merely shallowly and whimsically live it.

[v.o.M.]
"Viktor Ovurmind" @thoughtspaces

Re: Seeing “Henry V”

Rohan — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:49:02 -0000

Re: A question of eyeballs

James Ferguson @kWIQly — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:21:41 -0000

Hi Shanac - picked up on your blog from fredwilson
Enjoyed this but felt I should comment at length - sorry

I see this as being about an extension of ice-cream truck marketing theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

Theory refresher:
1) An icecream truck puts itself on the middle of the beach - a real world beach
2) 2nd truck parks next to first - servicing less people optimally but securing on a simple nearness criterion half market

Observations

Both could do better by mutually distancing from each other to make themselves geographically accessible to "their" half market

Each does better by betraying pact - In winner takes all market violence ensues

However, if product differentiation is considered one sells hot dogs (or illegal substances) and no ice-cream - they park next to each other and simply try to out-service each other.

Optimum solution - One company buys many trucks, sells burger and ices (with mustard? - biz op. anyone?), from each and puts them each in centre of one geographic share of the beach

Applying theory more broadly ...Now consider an infinite zero landscape market, with infinite accessibility (the internet), and rapid evolution of service offerings Web 2.XYZ

Result - Each van must become Go To provider of a differentiator service or will be swallowed up

A map of ice-cream carts remains valuable (Google)

Reviews of new services become valuable (blogging)

Rating systems become valuable (XYZ+1)

Walled Gardens are attractive- they make a physical features that must be defended but create locality

Walled gardens collapse , and proprietary models collapse (AOL / patents - ultimately / Microsoft - who?

They must as they serve no purpose

Barriers to entry collapse - Incubators / Y Combinator / virtualisation / Mini VC / Super Angel

Businesses and resources eventually become commodities - Silicon Road - 500 startups - recruitment wars (no differentiators only equity and cash )

Investment markets cease to show long term super-normal profits see various recent blogs

- Big players are all bubbles Color ful ones :)

Diverse services can be highly profitable in smaller naturally differentiated markets (languages /culture/ location based services) and B2B support tools.

Smart money moves out of geographically constrained markets - Sand Hill/ Menlo becomes New York Seattle
London - and commodity money seeks diversity eg @Seedcamp #Prague

- and that is why I am mentoring there next week :)

Re: A question of eyeballs

Rohan — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 10:50:41 -0000

Well, let's see. I think it all dies down after the initial furore. :)

Re: A question of eyeballs

ShanaC — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 07:37:37 -0000

Certain changes are definitely good. Facebook is turning into a utility, and as much as you and I don't care, at some point they are going to drive the normals bonkers....

Re: A question of eyeballs

Rohan — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 02:15:47 -0000

I think change is good! :) It takes a bit of time to get used to every change but I've generally been happier with them.. :)

Re: Klout has it wrong

Fernando Gutierrez — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 02:11:15 -0000

I don't think you overreacted, just raised a valid point about Klout and started a nice discussion!

Re: Klout has it wrong

ShanaC — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:36:55 -0000

A part of me wonders if I overreacted in my post, primarily because of your point about going deeper into the data.

Re: Klout has it wrong

ShanaC — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:35:58 -0000

Marketing is inherently difficult - it is the art and science of the subtle sell.

And I do agree with you about the SATs. And grades. I've seen so many job applications about my SATs and grades that I'm bored of the idea...

Re: Klout has it wrong

ShanaC — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:34:41 -0000

Hi guest. Honestly, I measure my true reach by my ability to get stuff done. I'm not sure Klout can measure that

Re: Klout has it wrong

Fernando Gutierrez — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:48:49 -0000

I guess humans try to turn everything into a competition. More so if there is money at stake, and web influence is important precisely because of that. As you, I don't like to be analyzed, I always feel I'm more than the result. But then many times I'm guilty of not going deeper on someone and just read the result of someone-else's analysis...

Re: Klout has it wrong

Guest — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 19:48:59 -0000

Klout measures your engagement/activeness on the web. Honestly, I think it's a great metric for you to gauge your true reach-whether it's your followers, friends, readers etc....

Re: Klout has it wrong

Rayhan Rafiq Omar — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 06:21:39 -0000

Unrelated, but wouldn't the same considerations apply to the SAT system, where you get a score and that has an overwhelming effect on how you are defined?

I think someone intelligent has the opportunity to help society recognise individual strengths, but it would be a difficult marketing proposition.

Re: Klout has it wrong

ShanaC — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 22:49:37 -0000

I think I probably would recommend trying to reveal complexities. The reason is that coming from a marketing perspective the data is kind of necessary. We're finding out that for certain types of responses, narrowcasting is better, which means the more data that is personalized, the better.

In a sense, it makes sense that Klout would want to add every social service on the face of the planet, but it still isn't so reflective of the person - the number thing means what, exactly, in context of narrowcasting.

Re: Klout has it wrong

Rayhan Rafiq Omar — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 09:54:25 -0000

Shana, you make an incredibly valid point. So are you recommending improving Klout-like services to reflect the complexity of an individual, or are you going to delete your Klout account?

Re: Ads Gone Mobile

Emeri Gent [Em] — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 07:17:28 -0000

Is there a third way? Yes providing "ways" are limitless . . . but if there is a third way, then it is "know thyself". How many people really know themselves? I understand that I don't know myself because otherwise I would be automatically making really brilliant life calculations rather than imperfect decisions. Just as waste is a natural phenomena of any system, imperfection saves us, for I see the perfect system as an artificial intelligence, or the singularity.

We human beings IMHO should be thankful of our conditioning, for it is something, during one life time we can learn to untangle and free ourselves from. The perfect human being does not exist and as yet neither does the perfect machine. Right now I know I am thinking, but I also know that I am entering thought data into a machine. As long as I don't mistake where I end and where the machine, material or market begins - I am fully capable of changing my human condition. Of course being ONE self is the challenge, when I think about me, I am still me, not an external being.

Of course I can greatly expand my wisdom about the human condition, if I were to be free of my condition, but Übermensch I am not :-)

Regards
[Em]

"Emeri Gent" @thoughtspaces

BTW I do now tweet and accept followers only at thoughtspaces albeit still in protected mode, you are free and most welcome to choose to be my second observer [follower] :-)

I will follow you back via "Emeri Gent" (you took a social media hiatus for a while, so I need to check you back in). My four twitter profiles viz. "emerigent" "ovurmind" "markzorro" & "rupyyuan" are followed only by thoughtspaces.
These four thoughtspaces are the web of relationships related to each respective grouping and not the one-to-one follow-follower relationships which head office at Twitter created. Man do I make such simple things so complicated, but it works for me [as my thoughtspaces] :-)

Re: Ads Gone Mobile

ShanaC — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:03:16 -0000

Is it an either/or propostion when it comes to discovering versus the conditioned response? Is there a third way?

Re: Ads Gone Mobile

the thoughtspaces — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:54:16 -0000

Stanley Fish - Does Philosophy Matter . . .
http://opinionator.blogs.nytim...

I will never be the guy for a philosophical discussion, but as Stanley Fish points out, I don't need to be.

"But philosophy is not the name of, or the site of, thought generally; it is a special, insular form of thought and its propositions have weight and value only in the precincts of its game .

This is where Fisk's essay is brilliant, that it all depends on what we are looking at, life is or isn't is a great philosophical question - it is a philosophical application. When he says "Believing or disbelieving in moral absolutes is a philosophical position, not a recipe for living." I am delighted to think that I what I write has no philosophical basis, for it is an app. App means application doesn't it?

Before I seek awesome search capabilities on my technological applications, I must keep on working on my life application. That is fo rme the way technology keeps pace with life.

Re: Ads Gone Mobile

the thoughtspaces — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 06:47:56 -0000

What I like about Cialdini is that he opens me open to suspectability and vulnerability in the realm of MY conditioning. That is what I appreciate most about his research, that one can make it intensely personal - the only lens I can read Cialdini is the one of self-awareness. How can I possibly understand the human condition if I don't understand my own conditioning - not just how I am influenced.

One of my conditioning's is marketing and the branded self. If marketers should implicitly know what I want, then I must surely believe that the world revolves around me and the downside of living that kind of belief is living in a state of convulsive paranoia. Think about it, at its logical end, the servile "what I want" question puts me in the center of the world. That is exactly the kind of conditioning I am most trying to be free of :-) The examination of the relationship between influence and its conditioning effects is a freedom to explore life at the most personal level.

I don't naturally think in terms of points but in terms of examples. Your first example fits far more in the realm of innovation realities than how we influence innovation. Here is the ugly news about innovation, it comes with a bag load of failure and most people are well and truly afraid of innovative things and people. Here the idea of crossing the chasm that Geoffrey Moore put forth is far more instructive. Early adopters have a different mindset, I am not saying that it is less conditioned but it is far more venturesome and henceforth a whole lot less paranoid (think of the term "buyers remorse"). The way I look at it, the ATM, as an idea, is the second best cash dispensing system in the world. The best cash dispensing system in the world are our parents.

In the second example of hidden intent and doing the opposite etc etc - I tend to explore social conditioning through the thought process of Jiddu Krishnamurti. (I am not even close to thinking about things the way he does - but his approach the most factual way). Cialdini opens me to the awareness of my social conditioning, but it is Krishnamurti who highlights the very difficult challenge of our very thoughts that come closest way to Socrates "know thyself".

Take a quick dip into Krishnamurti Seattle talk linked below :

Jiddu Krishnamurti - Seattle 5th Talk (1950)
http://www.jiddu-krishnamurti....

The bottom line or crux of the matter here is that we have to discover these things ourselves or we can settle for the conditioned response. Cialdini has shown me (or at least opened the doorway) that I have been doing more than my fair share of settling for less - after all it's the lazier, easier and more convenient approach - the kind of approach that really does makes me a right royal consumer rather than a humble and joyful human being :-)

Re: Ads Gone Mobile

ShanaC — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 09:56:05 -0000

It is interesting - I'm on the project vrm list, and I have read Cialdini (though I should reread). Sometimes I have to ask them the following question - how do you identify what I want if
1) said product never existed yet - think ATMS, they failed massively when people started to ask if they were a good idea, and once in market, they were a huge sucess.
2) a lot of my communication is non-verbal (something Cialdini doesn't discuss very directly, if I remember correctly). Much of my intent is hidden in what I do, not what i say (in fact, sometimes I will say the opposite)

Re: Ads Gone Mobile

the thoughtspaces — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:11:46 -0000

The core of advertising in the media age is, that someone has to benefit in order for information to be free. So I would like to separate advertising and mobility and then bring them together where they count most - the end user. I then need to go back a decade or so and wheel back in the Cluetrain Manifesto

Cluetrain Manifesto
http://www.cluetrain.com

If one peels away the rebel talk and the breaking down the corporate wall talk, there is a foundational layer of the Cluetrain Manifesto which is still prescient to our age. If markets are conversations (which of course they should be if they are not already) then as a consumer I should be a part of the marketing conversation. That means that another old brew called "One-to-One" marketing has to be hauled out from the thought storage room also. Finally a third conception of personalization can be down and dusted again and looked at anew.

I never liked the word targeting because as a fundamental part of the one-to-one marketing relationship, I don't want to be considered a target. There are plenty of people who do utilize media for "targeting" and today we normally refer to them as terrorists. That is why the Cluetrain Manifesto is important because it isn't about targeting but about having a conversation. Now the question once was, how do you have a conversation with analog couch potatoes. Today the question is how to have a conversation with the digital happy place.

OK, I must admit, when I begin to riff things online I too am in my digital happy place, but conversation itself is full bodied process, not a virtual connection. The difference between the two is that the conversation does not dissipate because the message has been sent, instead it forms a part of our individual life path - advertising simply being a stream of value that enters our river of life. That pathway requires long-term thinking, modern day digital communication however favors a short-term pulse.

We can only create long-term thinking when the advertiser becomes our servant rather than the creative authority. Even the word "creative" needs to be examined very thoroughly. Am I not being creative now as I write this? How then do the words "creative" and "targeting" jive with my own existence? I am creative, we all are - but we need a life path view and not a consumer path view to see or realize it.

In any case, when it comes to the traditional idea of "creative" as an advertising term (instead of a term that is a euphemism for the imagination), here I dust down the prior ideas of Sergio Zyman, and in particular that the job of marketing isn't to win creative awards, but to sell. Then the missing evolutionary link is that which was thought up in the Cluetrain Manifesto, viz: I also exist and I (the buyer) am a fundamental part of the selling relationship. Moreover if I think in terms of life path creativity instead of consumer marketing, then I must also understood how I am influenced and sold - and as a result what my bias potential really is, and how reactive I really am. Dig out Robert Cialdini's work on influence here as an intro point to this self-awareness.

Then we are putting advertising in the realm of awareness rather than attention. Marketing itself is in a conundrum in the increasing war for attention. Awareness on the other hand is a much more peaceful thing, it is driven by the person who advertisers need to reach. Instead of working out how advertising works on our mobile device, I therefore submit that we should we looking at who we are (as the advertisee and advertised) and mobility as decision rather than device. Then what we are holding is technology that we are most fundamentally alive to and a relationship which rises above the sea of spam. Today we actually spam each other with messages and yet we call it instant messaging, tomorrow we might cut through this oceanic clutter and realize what most needs to be realized, our very life is this realized conversation-awareness mix.

Re: Google Plus’s Minuses

Paul Smith — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:08:20 -0000

Thanks for that bit of wisdom; I will keep my friends & family away for now. ;)

I'm not interested in the sparks either, but I wish it was easier to separate my circles' streams by subject matter. I'd like to see everything that Jack posts, everything Jill posts about C#, none of what Mary posts (but still keep her in my circles; she's sensitive about such things), and everything Fred posts that isn't sports related.

I think "focused priority" is something nobody's quite nailed yet.

Re: Google Plus’s Minuses

ShanaC — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 10:54:42 -0000

I'm seeing a lot of mixed responses. Though I am honestly (and haven't
played with it enough) interested in the Sparks.

As I see F&F come in, I'm actually a bit more frustrated, more so sort
through

Re: Google Plus’s Minuses

Paul Smith — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:20:15 -0000

I think Google+ is shaping up to be the superior tool for building a public personal online brand with broad interactivity. Facebook is better at facilitating sharply delineated visibility and sharing boundaries. As such, I think you'll see influencers participate in the biggest droves, and people who primarily interact with friends and family won't get the point of G+ for some time to come.