Twitter Quitter Not Bitter

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Over on Authenticities, the Edelman Digital weblog, I wrote about Hugh Macleod's abrupt, yet cordial departure from Twitter and whether a mass exodus is brewing. If you're not subscribed I highly recommend it. We're blogging daily. I and I have been posting there weekly. You can get the feed here.(On an unrelated note, I picked up this great book on how the New York Post writes headlines. I want that job in my next life. The headline on this blog post was my first attempt. Like it?)Go to site

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» Cloud Computing's Impact on Digital Marketing - Trends to Watch
Photo credit: King Cloud by akakumo.The following is my column in next week's AdAge...One of the biggest trends shaping technology today is called "cloud computing." Consumers and business are moving more of their data off their computers and into rich Internet applications that are available everywhere - e.g. "the cloud." You can experience this for yourself on sites like Yahoo Mail, Google Docs, Salesforce.com and Mint.com.While geeks have been gushing over web-based software for years now, the average consumer has been slower in adopting them. That said, given the already huge popularity of webmail services, it's only a matter of time before they do for more complex tasks.Here are three things for marketers to watch...LESS IS MORE: How much did you spend on your last computer? If you're like most you probably plunked down anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000. However, your next computer could be a sub-$500 netbook.Netbooks are light, low-powered, cheap laptops with small screens. They rely on the Internet for most tasks and are growing in popularity. According to Google Trends, netbook searches are up 4x this year and IDC sees sales topping nine million in 2012.As netbooks rise, thin will be in. Since these computers are underpowered by design, consumers who use these devices will eschew complicated, 3D or processor-intense experiences in favor of interfaces that are easy and formatted for a 10" screen.WEB APP ADS: Many online applications like Google Reader are free. Others, like Mindmeister - a mind mapping tool - operate under a fremium model where the basics are free but advanced features carry a premium. To date most are devoid of ads.Webmail has displayed ads since its earliest days. Others like Meebo, a universal IM service, or the online radio site Pandora are taking this a step further by creating immersive brand experiences. However this is just the beginning.As web applications rise, it will unleash innovation. For example, online photo editors like Adobe Photoshop Express (note - Adobe is an Edelman client) or Picnik could serve ads for how-to photography books to consumers that spend an extensive amount of time tinkering.MOBILE FIRST, NOT LAST: Too often today, mobile is an afterthought rather than the focal point when it comes to digital marketing.Cloud computing is liberating people from their computers. Some executives I know leave their laptops at home when traveling on business since their smartphones carry the load. In 10 years time this will be the norm as mobile devices, powered by cloud computing, wirelessly connect to keyboards, mice and monitors and offer as rich experience as today's computers. This trend toward one device that does it all will be a catalyst for mobile marketing.UPDATE:: One thing I did not cover in this column is reliability. Om's got a great post on this today.
» Tiger Woods Responds to Fan's YouTube Video
This is brilliant marketing on the part of Electronic Arts and Tiger Woods. A fan posted on YouTube that it's possible for Woods to hit a golf ball in Tiger Woods 08 while walking on water. How does Tiger react? By showing how it's done and promoting Tiger Woods 09 in the process. (via John Porcaro)
» Cloud Computing's Impact on Digital Marketing
Photo credit: King Cloud by akakumo.The following is my column in next week's AdAge...One of the biggest trends shaping technology today is called "cloud computing." Consumers and business are moving more of their data off their computers and into rich Internet applications that are available everywhere - e.g. "the cloud." You can experience this for yourself on sites like Yahoo Mail, Google Docs, Salesforce.com and Mint.com.While geeks have been gushing over web-based software for years now, the average consumer has been slower in adopting them. That said, given the already huge popularity of webmail services, it's only a matter of time before they do for more complex tasks.Here are three things for marketers to watch...LESS IS MORE: How much did you spend on your last computer? If you're like most you probably plunked down anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000. However, your next computer could be a sub-$500 netbook.Netbooks are light, low-powered, cheap laptops with small screens. They rely on the Internet for most tasks and are growing in popularity. According to Google Trends, netbook searches are up 4x this year and IDC sees sales topping nine million in 2012.As netbooks rise, thin will be in. Since these computers are underpowered by design, consumers who use these devices will eschew complicated, 3D or processor-intense experiences in favor of interfaces that are easy and formatted for a 10" screen.WEB APP ADS: Many online applications like Google Reader are free. Others, like Mindmeister - a mind mapping tool - operate under a fremium model where the basics are free but advanced features carry a premium. To date most are devoid of ads, but that's about to change.Webmail has displayed ads since its earliest days. Others like Meebo, a universal IM service, or the online radio site Pandora are taking this a step further by creating immersive brand experiences. However the is is just the beginning.As web applications rise, it will unleash innovation. For example, online photo editors like Adobe Photoshop Express (note - Adobe is an Edelman client) or Picnik could serve ads for how-to photography books to consumers that spend an extensive amount of time tinkering.MOBILE FIRST, NOT LAST: Too often today, mobile is an afterthought rather than the focal point when it comes to digital marketing. That's about to change.Cloud computing is liberating people from their computers. Some executives I know leave their laptops at home when traveling on business since their smartphones carry the load. In 10 years time this will be the norm as mobile devices, powered by cloud computing, wirelessly connect to keyboards, mice and monitors and offer as rich experience as today's computers. This trend toward one device that does it all will be a catalyst for mobile marketing.
» Does the Thrill of the Chase Make PR Obsolete?
As a relatively high-profile blogger, I get to see things that others in PR, even those who blog, don't experience. One of those is my Gmail inbox. It's my barometer for how the public relations is adapting in this era of change. The forecast? We're smack dab in a cat five hurricane.Every day I am deluged with hundreds of PR pitches. They come from everywhere: startups, big companies, competing PR firms and, occasionally, from people inside Edelman. I read all the emails but delete 99.99% of them. I don't even respond. I feel bad about it, but they're so off base I can't even begin to tell you how bad they are. There are a few companies that get it right all the time - mostly those with content like ABC News, the New York Times, Pew, Hitwise, Forrester, IDC and others. The rest simply don't. However, I can't fault them. They're doing what has always worked for them: sending out email pitches. But those days are coming to an end.It's my view that increasingly, bloggers (and maybe journos too) simply don't want our help. Many bloggers - particularly those who cover tech - love to discover things and experience on their own, unaided by PR. Exhibit A: Robert Scoble. Note the joy of serendipity in his post. However he's not alone by any means.I know that when I write about news, I mostly do so if I discovered it on my own - as I did twice over the weekend. If I didn't find it on my own or experience it myself, I don't bother. I like the thrill of the chase and serendipity. I like being first. This is something that has fueled the egos of reporters for years - partly because it sells.So what then for PR? If this is a universal truth - and I am not sure that it is - does it make us obsolete? If we don't adapt, yessir. PR Week Publisher Julia Hood and I recently discussed about this during our New Media Summit in Chicago. She said, and I agree, that pitching is broken. We have to stop spamming people and make sure that companies and products are easy and a joy to discover. No easy feat, but in this Google age, it's a must.
» New York Times Flags Print Edition Stories
The New York Times recently made a small, but important change to stories they post on their web site. If the story ran in print, at the bottom they include a tiny footnote that says where it ran and when. For example, the footer on this piece on video games notes: "A version of this article appeared in print on August 10, 2008, on page AR1 of the New York edition."This kind of context is helpful for not only readers, but PR pros as well. The major monitoring services like Factiva tell you where a story ran, but Google News does not. Now it's easier to tell. Most publications don't offer a feed just of the content they run in print. The Economist is one of the few. However, now you can easily use Google News to build a feed for stories that the Times ran in print. Simply search for the phrase appeared in print. Then you can subscribe to the the RSS feed Google generates.If you want, you can even get more specific - creating a feed for all stories that ran in print that are on a particular subject. For example, here's a search for stories about the Olympics that ran in the print edition of the Times. You can subscribe to the feed here.
» Amazon Adds Universal Wish List
Amazon.com's Wish List feature has been around a long time - over 10 years in fact. However, recently the e-commerce site expanded it with a new feature called The Universal Wish List. Using a simple bookmarklet (drag this to your bookmarks) you can now add any item to your list from anywhere on the web. As you can see from the image above, I was able to use the tool to add a Brett Favre jersey from NewYorkJets.com to my wish list. Once it was there, the new item basically acts like a bookmark, taking me back to the original site where I found the product.Wish lists are one of the earliest forms of online social expression. You can add Amazon's wish list to your site as a widget or even your Facebook or Friendfeed profile. A list of products that people have added to their wish list can be found over on Friendfeed.Now that Amazon has expanded this longtime feature of the site, I expect we'll see a certain type of user keeping their lists there - which if anything gives Amazon more data into insights into how people shop. In addition, it's conceivable that this could become a social commerce feature over time given Amazon's popular Associates program.
» How Newspapers Can Turn Problems Into Profit
A few weeks ago I wrote about the perfect storm facing print media. Robert Scoble started a similar thread on Friendfeed over the weekend. This week in my AdAge column I look at the same trends, but this time through the lens of potential solutions to the problems.Newspaper publishers are facing a perfect storm thanks to three megatrends: rising inflation, America's growing green conscience and disruptive technology. To succeed in this era of great change, they need to think about how to make lemonade out of these perceived lemons. Unfortunately, so far, they haven't. Here's my advice.RISING INFLATION: As gas prices rise sharply, so do distribution costs. To compensate, many newspapers have announced they are significantly increasing their hard-copy newsstand prices. However, that's a 20th-century reaction to what is a complex, 21st-century problem.What they should be doing instead is using this as an opportunity to put a hard date on when they will abandon print altogether, close down plants and migrate completely to a digital paradigm. They need to have faith that their brands and quality editorial product will encourage readers who haven't already migrated to do so.GREEN CONSCIOUSNESS: Americans are increasingly becoming very aware of their environmental impact and what they can do to mitigate it. Millions are taking the simple step of cutting print subscriptions in favor of (slowly) going completely digital. Is this a threat to newspapers? Of course, but it's also an opportunity.Advertising -- particularly outdoor and print -- also creates tremendous waste. Newspapers can take the lead in going green and in the process create new avenues for advertisers to play up their related social-responsibility programs online. It's a win all around.DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY: Last but not least we have the growing popularity of speedy 3G-enabled smartphones and devices such as Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Newspapers have invested heavily here, creating smartphone apps and pushing content for Kindles. But they don't go far enough.Newspapers have made it hard for readers to get what they want without jumping through hoops. For example, they syndicate story summaries in their RSS feeds (even to paid subscribers). This forces readers to visit the website for the full content, and when they do, they have to trip over interruptive ads and interstitials.Make it easy for loyalists to get what they want, when they want it, and they will remain just that -- loyal.
» Could Wireless Radios Become the Next Tobacco?
It's hard to remember, but there was a time back in the 1950s and 60s when cigarettes were truly glamorous. No one really considered the potential health ramifications. The images below of James Dean and Frank Sinatra are iconic representations of an era that is now long gone. Since then, of course, people stared to die from diseases that smoking contributed to and we learned a lot about its health impact, including that of second-hand smoke.James_dean_smoking Sinatrasmoking  Now flash forward to today. Our latest addiction? Wireless technology. It's everywhere. And, according to all known accounts, it's completely harmless. However if you look at the photos below (Lindsay Lohan and Harrison Ford), given the above context, is it conceivable things could change in a decade or two and that we might view these images differently?Wenn1744490xlarger Harrison_fordIf there's anyone who is an early candidate to get whatever wireless-induced disease may one day be in our future (if at all), it's me. I have had a cell phone since 1994. Today, the iPhone 3G I carry in my pocket, which rarely leaves my side, has any one or more of the following radios on at a given time: 2G wireless, 3G wireless, wifi, bluetooth and GPS. That's a lot of signals.Last week Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, warned people to limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. This is causing some parents to consider postponing when their children can have cell phones. This is probably just temporary panic fire. Still, the admonition certainly got me and others thinking.Branko Miletic in Australia is following a similar thread, asking "Are Mobile Phones The New Cigarettes?" The answer today is a resounding "no." But I wonder what we'll say in 20 or 25 years. I have no plans to stop using wireless technology. It's way way too integrated in my life. In fact, my iPhone is fast becoming my primary device. The rise of cloud computing will only accelerate the trend. But I do sometimes wonder about the fact that we don't know what we don't know. How about you?
» Google News Separates Blogs from News
Google News has started to separate blogs and news links, according to the Google Operating System..."When you view a cluster in Google News, there's a new option to filter sources: you can restrict news articles to blogs and to local news sites that are relevant to your query. The filters are a good way to find opinionated articles and more up-to-date information from local sites."I never understood why they have a separate search engine for blogs. Further, this just blurs the line. Take a look at this cluster of blog links on Obama, which includes a lot of traditional media blogs. All of this is becoming a giant cake mix as the Google Web index gets faster. It's not so easy anymore to keep the pigs and cows contained.Read
» How Newspapers Can Turn Problems Into Profit
A few weeks ago I wrote about the perfect storm facing print media. Robert Scoble started a similar thread on Friendfeed over the weekend. This week in my AdAge column I look at the same trends, but this time through the lens of potential solutions to the problems.Newspaper publishers are facing a perfect storm thanks to three megatrends: rising inflation, America's growing green conscience and disruptive technology. To succeed in this era of great change, they need to think about how to make lemonade out of these perceived lemons. Unfortunately, so far, they haven't. Here's my advice.RISING INFLATION: As gas prices rise sharply, so do distribution costs. To compensate, many newspapers have announced they are significantly increasing their hard-copy newsstand prices. However, that's a 20th-century reaction to what is a complex, 21st-century problem.What they should be doing instead is using this as an opportunity to put a hard date on when they will abandon print altogether, close down plants and migrate completely to a digital paradigm. They need to have faith that their brands and quality editorial product will encourage readers who haven't already migrated to do so.GREEN CONSCIOUSNESS: Americans are increasingly becoming very aware of their environmental impact and what they can do to mitigate it. Millions are taking the simple step of cutting print subscriptions in favor of (slowly) going completely digital. Is this a threat to newspapers? Of course, but it's also an opportunity.Advertising -- particularly outdoor and print -- also creates tremendous waste. Newspapers can take the lead in going green and in the process create new avenues for advertisers to play up their related social-responsibility programs online. It's a win all around.DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGY: Last but not least we have the growing popularity of speedy 3G-enabled smartphones and devices such as Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Newspapers have invested heavily here, creating smartphone apps and pushing content for Kindles. But they don't go far enough.Newspapers have made it hard for readers to get what they want without jumping through hoops. For example, they syndicate story summaries in their RSS feeds (even to paid subscribers). This forces readers to visit the website for the full content, and when they do, they have to trip over interruptive ads and interstitials.Make it easy for loyalists to get what they want, when they want it, and they will remain just that -- loyal.
» MarketingAge Profile
Marketing Age magazine, which is published in Ireland, ran a profile of me in their July/August issue where I talk about my role within Edelman Digital, how I use RSS to keep in the know and trends in social networking - including Friendfeed. The article is not online. However, If you're interested, they have graciously given me permission to share it here. The full PDF is here or you can simply click through each of the images below, which are up on Flickr.
» Could Wireless Radios Become the Next Tobacco?
It's hard to remember, but there was a time back in the 1950s and 60s when cigarettes were truly glamorous. No one really considered the potential health ramifications. The images below are iconic representations of an era that is now long gone. Since then, of course, people stared to die from diseases that smoking contributed to and we learned a lot about its health impact, including that of second-hand smoke.James_dean_smoking Sinatrasmoking  Now flash forward to today. Our latest addition? Wireless technology. It's everywhere. And, according to all known accounts, it's completely harmless. However if you look at the photos below, given the above context, is it conceivable things could change in a decade or two and that we might view these images differently?Wenn1744490xlarger Harrison_fordIf there's anyone who is an early candidate to get whatever wireless-induced disease may one day be in our future (if at all), it's me. I have had a cell phone since 1994. Today, the iPhone 3G I carry in my pocket, which rarely leaves my side, has any one or more of the the following radios on at a given time: 2G wireless, 3G wireless, wifi, bluetooth and GPS. That's a lot of signals.Last week Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, warned people to limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. This is causing some parents to consider postponing when their children can have cell phones. This is probably just panic fire. Still, the study certainly got me thinking.Branko Miletic in Australia is following a similar thread, asking "Are Mobile Phones The New Cigarettes?" The answer today is a resounding "no." But I wonder what we'll say in 20 or 25 years. I have no plans to stop using wireless technology. But I do wonder about the fact that we don't know what we don't know.
» Google News Separates Blogs from News
Google News has started to separate blogs and news links, according to the Google Operating System..."When you view a cluster in Google News, there's a new option to filter sources: you can restrict news articles to blogs and to local news sites that are relevant to your query. The filters are a good way to find opinionated articles and more up-to-date information from local sites."I never understood why they have a separate search engine for blogs. Further, this just blurs the line. Take a look at this cluster of blog links on Obama, which includes a lot of traditional media blogs. All of this is becoming a giant cake mix as the Google Web index gets faster. It's not so easy anymore to keep the pigs and cows separate.
» The iPhone is a Pandora's Box for Radio
Radio is Dead by super-structure The following is also my column in Advertising Age next week.All the talk about one medium replacing another, to date, has largely been just that - talk. Over time new formats tend to be additions in our lives, not replacements for something else. In the 80s, video did not kill the radio star, as the old Buggles song says. Rather MTV made it stronger.Still, an era is dawning where some new media will, in fact, supplant others. Or, more likely, existing information we interact with daily will come from new players that harness the Internet, e.g. bloggers stealing eyeballs from journalists. It's a function of the attention crash. We can't keep adding media to our lives without reaching a saturation point.While TV and print have been hemorrhaging, radio has remained more resilient in the digital age. It reaches 93% of the population for 18.5 hours per week, according to Arbitron. This is only down from 22 hours per week 10 years ago. The US - despite rising fuel prices - remains a car culture. We live in our automobiles and radio still rules here, despite the iPod invasion.This, in part, is because radio serves as a powerful discovery engine for new music. However, the medium today is one-way. That's about to be change thanks to sophisticated mobile devices. The broadband-connected cell phone turns this experience into one that harnesses crowds to become far more personalized. All you need to do to see this yourself is to buy an iPhone and download some of the free streaming audio applications like Pandora or Last.fm.The iPhone 3G and other smartphones like it will change how people access interact with audio. Already, the Pandora music discovery service is the fourth most popular application in the iTunes store. And bloggers like Jeff Jarvis believe that it will disrupt radio. I tend to agree.The cellphone will change the radio landscape by not only establishing a two-way modality but by ushering in new models for advertising that are mapped to people's musical tastes and perhaps locally relevant as well thanks to GPS. This maybe one of the most promising mobile ad formats and is a space to watch.
» Threats and Opportunities in Data Leaking
Photo Credit: Kaia Gets Caught! by marcus_in_nyKaia, the cat in the photo above (no, she's not mine), is symbolic. If she looks like an LOLcat that's my intention. Kaia represents consumer social networks and free collaboration tools like Twitter, Facebook, Google Docs and LinkedIn. The faucet and the pipes you don't see here are your IT infrastructure. The water is the essential stream of data and information that businesses need for knowledge work. All of this combined represents a giant trend to watch - Data Leaking.In the business world, information technology (IT) pros plays an incredibly valuable role. As geeks we may not love them all the time, but they do keep mission-critical services like email up and running to "five nines." However, corporate IT is at a major crossroads and things are about to get a lot more complicated.In a few years mid-level knowledge workers will be dominated by Generation Y. As has been well-chronicled, this demographic has a very different view of digital tools. They grew up with the web. Facebook was part of their college and now their professional lives. They live online and use these technologies to nurture and grow both their business and personal networks.That's where the drama begins. The pace of innovation in the consumer Internet sector will always outpace what the enterprise can do. It's a tortoise and hare scenario that's really not corporate IT's fault. As a result a lot of work - especially anything that involves collaboration - is leaking outside the workplace and CIOs are left to deal with the risks.Employees, frustrated with the tools they are given, are simply takingmatters into their own hands. Data is leaking away form corporationsinto social networks, which are becoming the new intranets andextranets of tomorrow.Top-tier reporters I know are using social networks to bring together their sources into working groups or simply to connect. Many others - both PR pros and journalists - are using Help a Reporter. One Fortune 500 marketer I am consulting has set up a site on Ning to bring together some of it's more digitally savvy employees. James McLaine writes that DDB Worldwide, the largest ad agency in the world, is running a private Facebook group to organize and run a mentoring program. Nielsen exec Pete Blackshaw sheepishly admits he has moved non-proprietary work to the cloud. I am sure that many other examples abound.Corporate IT knows that Data Leaking is going to be one of their top challenges. According to Forrester Research, 79% are concerned about the risks of unsanctioned use of Web 2.0 tools by their employees (see chart below). The data also shows they know they need to lead the way. However, that's the challenge. IT pros will never be able to keep up with Google Docs, Facebook, Twitter and others who are creating tools that consumers fall in love with and integrate into their own lives. It's just not the way companies operate.The new world of work thrives on online collaboration. The companies that continually build walls around their employees won't be around a decade from now. As the Wikinomics blog indicates, this requires a new breed of CIOs who are willing to let their employees go and tap into their innovative spirit, rather than try to shut it down (a whack a mole scenario). The more liberal an IT department is, the more likely it is they will be able to innovate using a mix of external and internal tools.The ramifications of this trend are huge. As knowledge work moves to social networks and "the cloud," the rewards increase thanks to enhanced collaboration. However, then again so do the risks. Cloud services like Apple's MobileMe, Google Docs and Amazon S3 all have had high-profile outages in the last month. We haven't seen a massive security hole rupture in any of these systems yet, but that's always a possibility as hackers increasingly turn their attention to these super high-value targets.PR professionals have a lot to gain from using these tools. Collaborating on multiple drafts of a press release on Google Docs or Microsoft Sharepoint is a snap, as is interacting with reporters and bloggers on Facebook or LinkedIn. However, there are laws like Sarbanes Oxley to contend with and overall risks of downtime and/or potential security issues.Once again, it comes down to trust and everyone's own risk/reward levers. But something tells me that as Gen Y dominates, they will trust the web. And that means, like or not, data will flow away from internal servers towards open systems. That portends big things.
» The iPhone is a Pandora's Box for Radio
Radio is Dead by super-structure The following is also my column in Advertising Age next week.All the talk about one medium replacing another, to date, has largely been just that - talk. Over time new formats tend to be additions in our lives, not replacements for something else. In the 80s, video did not kill the radio star, as the old Buggles song says. Rather MTV made it stronger.Still, an era is dawning where some new media will, in fact, supplant others. Or, more likely, existing information we interact with daily will come from new players that harness the Internet, e.g. bloggers stealing eyeballs from journalists. It's a function of the attention crash. We can't keep adding media to our lives without reaching a saturation point.While TV and print have been hemorrhaging, radio has remained more resilient in the digital age. It reaches 93% of the population for 18.5 hours per week, according to Arbitron. This is only down from 22 hours per week 10 years ago. The US - despite rising fuel prices - remains a car culture. We live in our automobiles and radio still rules here, despite the iPod invasion.This, in part, is because radio serves as a powerful discovery engine for new music. However, the medium today is one-way. That's about to be change thanks to sophisticated mobile devices. The broadband-connected cell phone turns this experience into one that harnesses crowds to become far more personalized. All you need to do to see this yourself is to buy an iPhone and download some of the free streaming audio applications like Pandora or Last.fm.The iPhone 3G and other smartphones like it will change how people access interact with audio. Already, the Pandora music discovery service is the fourth most popular application in the iTunes store. And bloggers like Jeff Jarvis believe that it will disrupt radio. I tend to agree.The cellphone will change the radio landscape by not only establishing a two-way modality but by ushering in new models for advertising that are mapped to people's musical tastes and perhaps locally relevant as well thanks to GPS. This maybe one of the most promising mobile ad formats and is a space to watch.
» Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane)
Lifehacker is one of my favorite blogs. So when editor Gina Trapani invited me to guest blog about how to be productive with social media, I jumped at the opportunity. Here's the intro and summary. The full essay is here.Social media is the equivalent of digital food. It's nourishing, tasty and, for many of us, necessary. However, consume too much and you can get sidetracked and create larger consequences. The good news is you can participate in social media in a way that adds value to your life. You just need to know how to manage it so so that it does not devour your attention???the most valuable commodity of the digital age. Here are three simple steps I take.Step 1 - Set a North StarStep 2 - Apply the Pareto PrincipleStep 3 - Schedule Time to Be Social
» Independent's Day: Digital Nomads Rising
The following is also my column in Advertising Age next week.As I write this column, all the talk is about the recession. There were nearly 40,000 stories in Google News in the last week mentioning the R-word. In addition, a gallon of gas, now at four dollars, may hit seven bucks by 2010, according to CIBC World Markets. Meanwhile, layoff announcements are up 21% in 2008, Challenger, Gray and Christmas reports.Recessions often accelerate social shifts that are already percolating under the surface. One of the key trends I have been watching is the growing number of Digital Nomads.If you spend as much time on the road as I do, you???re likely to run into Digital Nomads. This sector of the workforce includes both independents and corporate workers. They use web-based tools like Twitter, wikis, Google Docs, social networks and Skype to collaborate and work wherever, whenever and however they want.Digital Nomads are already extremely influential. Many of them blog and hang out on sites like Web Worker Daily. In addition, they shun traditional communication tools like email.Luis Suarez is one such corporate nomad who I met recently at a conference in Brussels. Suarez has a successful career in knowledge management with IBM. He lives in the Canary Islands and has virtually eliminated all business email in favor collaborating via social networks. Suarez has chronicled this extensively on his blog.Others are declaring free agency. Charlene Li, an influential Forrester analyst who tracks digital trends, blogged that she is leaving the research firm to go independent. Some believe that the growing ranks of free-agent analysts may spell trouble for traditional research firms.The reality is that many of the tools that workers need to do their jobs are becoming free or low cost. This extends into verticals as well. For example the Google Ad Planner, which launched last week, theoretically could allow anyone to become a nomadic media planner.Digital Nomads are growing in numbers and they will create ripples. This trend will accelerate use of Web 2.0 technologies in the workplace. Over time, this may slow the efficacy of email marketing and accelerate the reliance on social media engagement.However, it goes deeper than that. If you don't allow your employees to become nomadic, they may do so and even compete against you in the process.
» links for 2008-06-23
Study: Having 6,141 friends you don't know may be beneficial"Students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st-century skills we want them to develop to be successful today,"(tags: SocialNetworking culture teens research Stats)We're connecting - and wasting time - on Twitter"The San Francisco-based network has all the makings of an Internet phenomenon with vast potential for social, business, political and cultural applications"(tags: twitter SocialNetworking microblogging)Wikinomics ?? Blog Archive ?? Who needs analyst firms anyways?Fascinating discussion about the potential impact on the big analyst firms from ???Open Source Analysis??? who offer insights up for free.(tags: analysts opensource Trends)Universal Edit ButtonService highlights web sites that are editable.(tags: Wikis icons)Info Overload: The Problem - ReadWriteWeb(tags: continuouspartialattention Overload attentioncrash attention Trends)Info Overload: What Can We Do? - ReadWriteWeb(tags: Trends Overload attention attentioncrash)
» links for 2008-06-22
Dipity"Dipity is the easiest way to make and share interactive timelines about the people and things you care about."(tags: timeline tools)The Microfame Game and the New Rules of Internet Celebrity -- New York Magazine"There???s a new class of celebrity powered by the Internet. The stakes are smaller, but the rewards are within anyone???s reach. These are the rules."(tags: celebrity Web2.0 Trends fame)The ECO-SAFE FoundationMake your blog easily printable and PDF friendly.(tags: environment green Tools Blogs Widgets)