Are Brands Fracking The Social Web? - July 2013

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An exploration of the cultural and structural differences between traditional brand architectures and the social web, with several doodles, reasonably passable jokes, and a brashness that would stand in the corner of a party, glass of wine in hand, and argue that style beats content...

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john v willshirehttp://smithery.co

@willsh

are brands

the social web?

http://rivetin.gs/gasland

fracking

this is STILL not a standard “what’s the social web” talk...

hopefully it’ll give you interesting ideas to talk to each other about

I’ve also left lots of rabbit holes...

http://rivetin.gs/sennett

let’s talk aboutfracking

“Fracking is an aggressive, invasive technique for extracting valuable raw materials out of hard to reach places”

phil adams, Blonde digital(and Chemical Engineer grad)

http://rivetin.gs/storyfracking

attention is the most valuable raw material there is

are brands fracking the social web?

the question I’m wrestling with:

some context...

I’ve been inadvertently writing this talk for the

last five years...

today, i runSmithery

http://rivetin.gs/smithery

prettyit’s beenthis, googlethanks for

useful

“work of” “goods made”

http://rivetin.gs/artefact

two types of

principleworkbut just one

before this, I worked at PHD Media for seven years as “the excitable scottish innovation one”

...which just became a stick that social and advertising zealots used to beat each other with...

(sorry)

http://rivetin.gs/bonfires

i wrote this in 2009...

http://rivetin.gs/communis

my IPA Excellence diploma thesis

maybe this is the start of this talk, back in 2008...

“I believe that the future of brand communications lies in finding a way to

become part of communities, and communicate with them in a way that is shared, participatory and reciprocal”

http://rivetin.gs/communis

me, five years ago

that sounds really annoying

yep, really annoying.

“Our challenge is that people really don’t care” martin Weigel, W+K

http://rivetin.gs/hownowtofailhttp://rivetin.gs/realpeople

brandsbe social, talk to you, be your friend?

how can

perhaps brands and the social web are just very different types of thing?

let’s think a little about

“conversations”

http://rivetin.gs/sennett

three books about the skills peopleneed to sustain everyday life

The Craftsman2008

together2012

with “cities”to follow...

working well cooperation

http://rivetin.gs/craftsman

“an exchange in which the participants benefit from the encounter”

http://rivetin.gs/together

cooperationthe latest book, ‘together’ is about

it contains a very useful way to think about conversation

“when we speak about communication skills, we focus on how to make a clear presentation, to present what we think or feel...”

Richard sennett, Together

ahem.

conversation is about listening

but more important than just listening is

listening well

listening carefully produces conversations of two sorts...

the dialectic and the dialogic

”Richard sennett, Together

what the f***?

dialecticfrom work of german philosopher GWF Hegel

the interaction and resolution between multiple ideas

http://rivetin.gs/hegel

dialectic:“the aim is to come eventually to a common understanding”

Richard sennett, Together

dialectic wants consensusA b C D E F G H

bA CD Fe Ge

C ADb G ADf

C ADb ADfg

...no matter how good that

consensus is

C ADb ADfg

http://rivetin.gs/camel

is it telling that very few crowdsourced “winners” are around for long?

dialogicfrom work of russian philosopher Mikhail Bahktin

“A discussion that does not resolve itself by finding common ground...”

Richard sennett, Together

http://rivetin.gs/bakhtin

“[people] become more aware of their own views and expand their understanding of one another”

Richard sennett, Together

http://rivetin.gs/enlightenment

dialogic:

in dialogic conversation, ideologies coexist

A

bC

D

E

FG H

they constantly interact and inform each other

A

bC

D

E

FG H

each ideology can hold more salience in certain circumstances

A

bC

D

E

FG H

changes can be made if a strategy does not have the desired effect

A

bC

D

E

FG H

this might not just apply to

“conversation”

This interchange of ideas is very reminiscent of the social web...

what if there are dialectic and

dialogic structures & cultures too?

are traditional marketing structures likely to be more dialectic?

are social web platforms and

companies more dialogic in nature?

it would help explain the

culture clash

Are brandsIntentionally fracking the social web?Perhaps...

or is it the fault of a massive cultural divide?

competitionsimplicityCompressioncertainty

cooperationcomplexity

fragmentationexperimentation

these cultures can greatly

each otherinfluence

social web companiesare heading over here

where the money is

they want to create safe, attractive places for brands to place ads

http://rivetin.gs/youradhere

“The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads” Jeff Hammerbacher

””

when eyeballs become dollar signs, things get ugly

“Both companies have turned their focus away from users and

toward shareholders to get bigger, not better.”

http://rivetin.gs/fastcoinnovation

we promise “

”screw it up!not to

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo

it’s also not greatfor the social web

“we've abandoned core values that

used to be fundamental to the web world”

http://rivetin.gs/thewebwelost

Anil Dash, “The web we lost”

“There's a little meme I've been hearing recently. Columnists repeating it, "Don't read the bottom half of the internet"...”

rob manual

http://rivetin.gs/bottomhalf

i fear the day when you look on ifttt and there’s only one channel

http://ifttt.com

I believe brands can and shouldmove this way a lot more

cooperationcomplexity

fragmentationexperimentation

how do you do

this?

some quickeconomics

the labour theory of value

http://rivetin.gs/labourtheory

developed by adam smith...

...and later by karl marx

modern economics:

the value of a thing is determined by what one

is willing to give up to obtain the thing

The labour theory of value

the value of something is determined by the labour that went into its production

perhaps there’s a labour theory of

brand value**it might need a better name, mind

Field Notes

£0.99 £3.33per padper pad

“marketing is world building. With unlimited bandwidth we can now show you the world.”

@TobyBarnes

We’d rather buy this world...

...than this world

Labour theory of brand value:

you have to make everything with the infinite canvas of the internet in mind http://rivetin.gs/legoinside

how does it change how we think about “brands”?

it’s not this, FFS

http://rivetin.gs/pyramid

“A brand is simply a collection of perceptions in the mind of

the consumer”Paul Feldwick, 1991

http://rivetin.gs/feldwick

“ I don’t think this definition is entirely adequate.”

http://rivetin.gs/farisbrand

faris yakob, 2010

What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? Gareth Kay What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we stitched smaller ideas together to create a longer idea? What if we

http://rivetin.gs/thinksmall

the modern brand islike a bittorrent file

complex, distributed, moving, uncontrollable...

...and yet never complete without every part

impossible for any one mind to conceive...

no, don’t jump...

“blow shit up”cindy Gallop

four ways to break apartdialectic brandsand make them actually useful in a year that doesn’t start with 19..

cooperationcomplexity

fragmentationexperimentation

based onthese four

break it down

break it back

break it up

break through

break it down

break it back

break it up

embrace the granularity of everything you’ve ever done

fragmentation

I’m really interested in the making of ‘it’ -where the making is part of the story of the ‘it’...

thomas heatherwick

“”

http://rivetin.gs/heatherwick

http://rivetin.gs/future2020

It could be blending everything you do now with a rich tapestry of your past...

or It could be showing everyone everything you do to make their thing...

which big brands

factoryhollowfind hard because of their

make brand vaguely interesting& buy loads of media

make product very efficiently

Marx was half right...

it’s not about the

meansof production

http://rivetin.gs/sneveoslo

it’s about themeaningin production

break it down

break it back

break through

It’s all about people, and what they do together to make great things happen

cooperation

yep.

Having lots of people in a company makes it easy...

owning lots of brands makes it harder...

break it up

Don’t consolidate. Fragment by sector,

Product, country, region...

complexity

think of it this way

you are an operating system

they’re not consumers

they’re users

open up your operating system

fight

users

forthe

there is no “one size fits all” in youtube

with the right mechanic,

complexity becomes

amazingly compelling...

break through

Experimentationshow people the

future you want to live in with them

sure, It’s easier for some brands

but every market has a future

you just have to show you’re part of it

http://rivetin.gs/future2020Mark Earls

cooperation

frag

ment

atio

ncomplexity

experimentation

How do I start?

build yourself a

paper version

draw out everything

try to map out the bittorrent...

then keep moving

everything around

finally, remember to

use it all...

http://shop.thedolectures.co.uk/product/the-infinite-potential-of-every-bit

thank youjohn v willshire

http://smithery.co@willsh

john@smithery.co

artefact Cards

http://shop.smithery.co