What's The Story?

What is this visual saying?  You write it.  If it makes sense, I'll add it to the post  with your name and a link.  Have fun.

Comments

[Marc]

Steps towards developing an experience that resonates. With a return back to Visit because, as a result of sharing, something new has developed that starts the process all over again.

[Doug Meacham]

David, This is indeed an interesting exercise and I expect you will get a variety of answers, each firmly situated in the context that the responder most easily relates to. In a retail context, I would say this graphic describes a great model for developing brand engagement.

Based on recommendation from friends, you decide to VISIT us (don't care which channel).

We want you to ENGAGE with us (that's a two way street and hopefully we deliver a great experience, because one way or the other....)

You will SHARE that experience. If it was good, some of those that you tell will...(go to step one).

get this pattern to repeat regularly and consistently and you build brand loyalty.

Just for fun, this could also reflect exactly what I am doing now and will probably do after I finish this comment. I visited your blog. I engaged with what looked like an interesting exercise. I will probably share this on my blog and hopefully, some of my readers will visit you as a result.

Did I win?

[CK]

This graphic is stunning (and no, i'm not just saying that for a write-up ;-). Actually, I think Doug has it down pat anyhow.

It could also be in a circle so that it's a never-ending process...and perhaps as a Venn Diagram it could have a sweet spot where they all intersect and that sweet spot could be labeled something like "advancement" (since the process indeed advances us).

Not sure I added much but I sure fancy the graphic.

[Senia Positive Psychology Coaching]

Oooh! A puzzle. Fun!

Ok, the top two arcs are the eyes, the bottom arc is a smiley. Then the nose is green.

And - this is the kicker - since you are LOGIC+EMOTION, the blue right cheek (controlled by the L rational brain) is a cooled logical, and the orange left cheek (controlled by the R emotional brain) is a warmed emotional. "Visit" is a logical, ought-to-do thing. "Share" is an "I want!" emotional, unhindered thing to do.

And "engage" - that's interaction - that's your conversation economy. That's the nose. Did you know that Japanese people point to their noses to represent "I, me, mine?" Not to their chests like Americans. So a formal Japanese businessman when asked who is responsible for the division may point his finger in a cute way to his nose and say, "boku" (me). Engage and interact are the center of it all, and so, appropriately, is the nose.

So we have a face with some logic in terms of "visiting" sites, some emotion in terms of "sharing" information with friends, and some "engagement" right in the center between the LOGIC+EMOTION.

Thanks for the fun puzzle. :)

[Drew McLellan]

David,

As always....great visual. I wrote this before reading any of the comments, so we'll see if I actually came up with something new or if I am just joining the chorus.

I think your visual tells the story of what at MMG we call the brand love affair.

First, there is the VISIT. That's the customers' few first samplings or purchases. They tentatively take a taste. The brand isn't a part of them yet - they're just visiting. They could still be lured away by the competitors' benefits or price.

As the consumer continues to interact with the brand, they begin to ENGAGE. They start to prefer the brand over the competitors. They are beginning to engage others with the brand by WOM and testimonials. Now, the consumer has begun to feel some ownership of the brand. This is brand loyalty and where most companies are content to live. We think it's a step short.

Until finally, the consumer SHARES in the brand's success. They think of it as "their" brand. They pick up trash at the Magic Kingdom because it's their park. They defend Harley's price point because it is their bike. They seek ways to introduce potential new clients to their agency because it's their marketing partner. This is the nirvana of the brand love affair. When the consumer is not just loyal but actively works on the brand's behalf because it's a part of who they are. They drive new VISITS as a part of that level of brand love.

Drew

[DA]

Folks,

This is darn good content. I'm going to have y'all write for me more often. Keep it coming—I'll probably have to post more than one since it's such interesting stuff.

[Nathan S]

Very interesting post concept! I really look forward to seeing the results :)

Here are some initial thoughts:

What of it as the inward process of a consumer interacting with a brand/product.

Visit yourself.
Engage your story.
Share your experience.

As they approach your brand, they visit their own identity. They examine what role your brand could play in their life, how it helps to form or tell the story of who they are.

If they decide that your brand seems like something that matches or enhances their identity, they engage their own vision of your product with them. They imagine the feeling they get when using it, the begin to craft the story of how the product plays a part in their life, what people say when they see them with it, and just how much it does enhance their identity.

Finally they share by indulging themselves and their friends with their new decision, with the story that they've crafted about what the experience will be like, how it meshes so well with their life, etc.

--
Another more direct take.

Visit is the first impression of whatever someone is interacting with.

Engage is the mandatory step from there. While many people can visit something, if they are not engaged on a personal level, their visit is more or less a waste of time on both accounts. Engage in this case is taking the time to recognize someone.

Once the person has been engaged, sharing on both accounts occur. Both from the visitor and the visitee. The sharing is the conversation process, getting to know the visitor and enjoying similarities, in both people creating an experience. During the sharing process, real connection should be occurring and excitement building. The excitement is necessary as without it, there will be no evangelical visitor.

[Jennier]

You meet someone, you have sex wtih someone, You split the hotel bill, rather, I mean the grandparents take turns watching the baby.

[Jon Smock]

The most natural meaning for this picture to me is the process of Christian discipleship.

Visit - to build a relationship with the people around you and to genuinely invest in them as friends, brothers and sisters.

Engage - to take that relationship deeper and challenge each other, to ultimately present the truth about Jesus Christ.

Share - (for the new believers) to go out now and share what they've come to believe, which leads to them visiting their own friends, families, co-workers...

You can probably make this even more general to include anything that has a "buzz" about it or anything that generates a following, but that's what I saw first.

[Adam]

It is a diagram of our interactions with this blog post and it is very clever.

[David]

To state it simply, it's a brilliant rendition of "word of mouth is the best advertising of all."

[Michele]

This looks familiar to me. Sounds like the participation pyramid concept we introduced.
I would translate your visual into: "The connections you make during your first exchange become the reason why you come back."

[Steve Woodruff]

It is either a depiction of a serial bigamist, or a very successful model of a good retail customer experience!

[Mitch]

At it's most gut level, this graphic describes "social networking." Social networking is a foundational part of all human activity, but here, we see it can be broken down into visiting, engaging, and then sharing of something (knowledge, wealth, etc). To see how this plays out, you can related it to blogs. I visited your blog, you engaged me with an exercise, and now, I am sharing my knowledge on your graphic. Brilliant exercise... In fact, the real answer is not my comment, but all the comments (we all visited, were engaged by your experiment, and are all sharing now). And the research would say, we will now visit more often. It is a cycle. the more engagement and sharing, the more visiting. Well done. I would add, this type of engagement reminds me of how impactful Blue's Clues was in taking over children's viewing habits... They used the same approach in many ways. Thanks for the opportunity to share... Mitch

[Dawud Miracle]

What I want to know is who creates all the graphics? You can't possibly have the time, can you?

I see social media and the 'new web.' As I've heard Scoble say, the blogosphere is reducing the global conversation into the size of board room. What I see is the conversation. Visit, Engage, Share, Repeat.

[bender]

"The Rationale for Brand-Created Exportable Content"

That's how it fits into my world, where my goal is creating a relationship between consumers and my client's brands in the digital space.

I use similar talking points to explain why a brand site isn't enough to do so.

It's also my rationale for why clients should give consumers the keys to car, so to speak, and let consumers define the brand as they see it and share it as they see fit.

I guess summarizing as "CGC" or "social media" would work, too.

This blog is great, btw. Loyal reader for about 8 weeks, and looking forward to more.

[bender]

After reading, let me re-phrase.

"Rationale for Brands Providing Exportable and Customizable Content to their Consumers"

Wow.....that's catchy.

[Steve]

David - the people who visited had a "beautiful experience".

[ardi XIV]

If sharing is the result of an engagement, where's the creative part of the story? What Is sharing more than (re-)articulating an initial thought? A collection of those circles could eventually lead to creation...

[Dave Maxwell]

OK, I did this before reading any comment since I didn't want it to influence what I took from it. Quick and dirty, here's what I took from that image (very cool btw).

To me it's the story of a business that's successful. A "circle of life" if you will.

1) If someone visits you, then try to engage them with your product or sevice.
2) If someone wants to engage in what you're offering, share with them the fruits of that product or service so they can see the benefit of what you have to offer.
3) If someone enjoys what you have shared, they will visit again.

[Eric Reagan]

I think this visual is a perfect illustration of exactly what we're doing here. We are all visiting David's blog. He has created this engaging experience we are all interested in. In this instance he is "engaging" us by asking a question, asking us to participate. Almost as an experiment. Asking questions. Taking chances. Let them create the post. Then essentially sharing the entire experience with everyone else. Sharing the results. Hopefully we can all learn something new along the way.

[Michael Melnick]

Talk About a transparent process!
Here's my take.

The 3 circles represent the way brands need to function in the 21st century in order to be successful. Consumers are evolving and marketers need to focus their efforts (and budgets) with these 3 steps in mind. The first step is investing in strategies to have people visit the brand (pay attention to it). The second step is designing creative systems where consumers can become co-creators of their brand experience and the third step is all about using media to spread the content across networks of new and existing consumers.

Not an easy challange but definitly an interesting one.

[Lewis Green]

David,

Here's my take:

You build it, I will come, I will comment, and I will pass the word along.

[Gong Szeto]

it reminds me of the wave of period victorian films made in the 90's (and today) - about people travelling great distances in coaches and horseback to stay at some mansion or villa for months at a time. they "visited", "engaged", and "shared" - and alas, great literature was borne of it. do we do this today? i don't think we have the time. so do we do it in other ways? yes, indeeed, and the time-space continuum is just wildly distorted compared to victorian times, but the impulse is still the same. great post.

[Trip O'Dell]

I think if you abstract it enough, its a pretty good metaphor for any sort of mediation. The one part that seems to be missing is the resulting change in the "visit" or experience part. It seems to imply a closed system, where nothing is added or lost due in the process.

Consider a fairly straightforward experience - listening to a song. We hear the song, process its meaning based on our current context, mood, memories, etc - and then assign it some form of meaning. If we listen (or visit)to the same song again a week or two later, its meaning changes because the new interaction is colored by the previous experience of the song along with everything else that has occurred between the two events.
Its why we find new meaning on the second or third visit to a book, a movie, a place, a website, whatever.

[Jacqueline]

I think that you, once again ;-), did a wonderful simply & strong design that stands for ' we are the web' or 'the world live web' as I like to call it. The way you designed it it seems to be a real perpetuum mobile.....

[Ben Kelly]

You've illustrated an infinite loop of experience and communication. You've illustrated an infinite loop of experience and communication. You've illustrated an infinite loop of experience and communication. You've illustrated an infinite loop of experience and communication. You've illustrated an infinite loop of experience and communication.

And so on. :)

[david]

Metrics 2.0

[Adrian Lai]

David,

It's a three-eyed monster!
http://do.palicio.us/blog/2007/04/25/logicemotion-whats-the-story/

[Ryan Karpeles]

The whole process actually starts on the right side: with Sharing.

It's only through one's initial decision to share that any of this (visit -> engage -> share) can come about.

Sharing is the first domino in the domino-line of communication participation. Knock it over and behold what happens.

[mindblob]

Hi David,

Well, many interesting views up here. I like Adrian's three-eyed monster. Maybe visionary in a way. From my perspective this visual says :

Digital Marketing expectations, wish or dream.

1. Consumer visits site.
2. Once consumer on site : engage conversation, engage action, engage reaction, engage positive experience with content...
3. Consumer shares experience and links his community/network to site (LOOP to 1. and "spread the loop")

PS :
4. If working so : Creative VP smile to pop out. And many more... naturally ; )

[Lisa Gates]

I'm with Michele -- "serial bigamist."

Since I visit your blog often, I purposely tried to disconnect the medium from the message. My first hit, before reading all the posts was, hmm, this is like sex in high school. Then I realized I could leave out the high school part.

So it's interaction, communication,cellular, viral, repeating, duplicable, simple, basic, not necessarily human.

L

[Matthew Pollock]

The important part this diagram that’s missing is what leads to the visit. You can build the best destination the world has ever seen and if they don’t visit what exactly do you have? Not this diagram. Let’s assume you have a robust media plan that drives to visit. Then what we are looking at is the creation of a social network. Interactive marketing 101. But beware, there are different levels of participation. A small percentage of visitors are active participants/creators. How many YouTube videos have you watched? How many have you posted? How many blogs have you read? How many do you comment on or publish? When you are thinking about creating social networks make sure you keep in mind both the active participant as well as the spectator. Many will visit, few will engage, less will share.

[DA]

Matt! Nice to see you here.

Here's a thought. Forget about Social Media. How does this apply to Disneyland? Which by the way—I hardly see advertisements for.

[Roger von Oech]

A three-way in Vegas.

[badbanana]

This is obviously a diagram of 1950s courting etiquette. First, you visit your girlfriend's parents and pull the father aside to reveal your intentions. Second, you ask for your girlfriend's hand in marriage and, if she says yes, celebrate your engagement with a short closed-mouth kiss. Lastly, you go back and share the news with both sets of parents over a) meatloaf, b) ice cream sundaes, or c) both. It's fairly obvious.

[mblair]

You’ve described the Dynamics of Community in the Social Media. People actively VISIT others online, then ENGAGE them in conversation, which leads them to SHARE experience in a way that benefits all. This in turn encourages more VISITORS. The process repeats and the conversation continues from where it left off.

A breakdown at any point and you have audience, not community.

[Kristin Gorski (KG)]

Great reading all the different interpretations! Here's my take on it:

Your illustration shows an excellent experience gone viral. Each of us wants to be part of something special that is bigger than just ourselves. You need a crowd to make this experience special. Examples:

- A few people find a great party early in the evening. They text their friends about it and more show up. Then those people text their friends, and more revelers show up. The party continues from night through the next day. After it ends, everyone talks about the "great party" where suddenly everyone showed up and it "never ended". They revisit it in their memories and through storytelling and it builds. People try to replicate the experience on subsequent weekends.

- The Burning Man Festival happens one year. Those who experience it bring it home with them and share. More people show up the next year, based on that first sharing. And so on, and so on. A mythology is built over time, and as word spreads, people want to be part of the building mythology and history of the event.

- A family reunion, started with just a few family members, picks up speed and involves more people over time. People learn of 3rd cousins they never knew existed, family members bring their spouses, start having babies and bringing their kids. Soon, many families are intertwined and attending. These are the kinds of family reunions that have their own t-shirts and hundreds of attendees each year.

[DA]

I'm sorry but these comments are excellent. I want to adress them one by one—but I'm feeling overwhelmed!

I promise I'll do something with these. The question is what exactly? The perspectives are so diverse and interesting. 1950's courting.... 3 ways in Vegas.... Serial bigamists...

The burning man example is excellent. Probably any festival that's worth something is a great example. It's memorable and why people keep coming back.

Great stuff.

[Raimo van der Klein]

Hi David, I love the concept. How things change when you may participate(not making the participation quote)

The process itself reminds me of something I started beginning of the year. It was called WikiPPT. Basically you start of with one powerpointslide and give others the possibility to add a slide themselves. The way I implemented it was through a chain letter. I found out that how further away you get from the originating core how harder it is to ghet people engaged. I am thinking therefor to post the WikiPPT somewhere centrally and if you wish to add a slide you can. Pull instead of Push..

http://contributionmarketing.wordpress.com/2007/01/09/wikipoint/

[Damiano Vukotic]

Had to link this post to my blog. Purest equation of engagement and WOM.

[Arun Rajagopal]

Hello David…
I’m late to enter the fray, nevertheless here’s my take on your visual story, based on an experience few days ago…
Man with the longest moustache in the world walks into a restaurant. A colleague at work spots him, comes back to office and tells me and a colleague about him, we both run to wonder at him and when we return back, we start sending people in groups to the restaurant to check him out – we are calling it ‘The Wednesday Morning Fix’. There are scenes of amusement, as people start loitering around the vicinity of the restaurant making unwanted calls on their mobiles, trying to capture him on mobile camera without being intrusive or ordering food from the restaurant while they are secretly eyeing the whiskered man chomping away to glory. One thoughtful colleague calls up the press, and soon there is a full-blown media interview going on. And the restaurant ends up doing roaring business. And I end up blogging on it - http://arunrajagopal.com/2007/04/26/the-man-with-the-worlds-longest-moustache/ - There you go… the cycle of > visit > engage > share >. Bingo!
Take care,
Arun