Logic+Emotion

The Five Content Archetypes

Today, the talk of the town amongst marketers is the potential for brands to act as publishers and media companies, going direct to their customers or consumers in the fight to earn attention. It's a lofty ambition but worth pursuing as there are three drivers changing how we spend our time and attention. 

1. Mobile
Increasingly, we are getting our information from the smaller screen. It's always on us—it's portable and connected to the Web. It plays video and all other sorts of media and apps have transformed how we interact with it.

2. Social 
Specifically newsfeeds. In addition to e-mail, we increasingly get our information in a newsfeed format (arguably e-mail was the original mobile newsfeed). Today it's Facebook, Instagram, Linked In, Twitter... the list goes on. What each one of these has in common is that it's dominated by content and sharing is only a button tap or click away. 

3. Search
Google continues to tweak its algorithm to favor quality content vs. redundant links and phrases which try to trick it. Because of this, it favors quality over quanity and becomes more difficult to game. 

The first wave of social was dominated by engagement and how to engage at scale. The second is dominated by engaging at scale plus content distribution and integration with marketing programs. To fully realize the promise of brands as media companies—we must first understand and classify content. There are five ways I've been thinking about content:

Curated
Media companies have always curated the best information available and customized this for the audiences they want to grow and keep. For brands, it's no different and is one of the most practical places to start. Take IBM's Smarter Planet Tumblr for example which curates some of the most interesting stories around intelligent technology. By doing this, the brand becomes an authority on the topic.

Co-Created
The biggest mistake I often see brands make when thinking about content is to forget that even content can be a participatory experience. In contrast, take AMC's Dead Yourself app which combines the aforementioned game changers (mobile + social) and empowers fans to zombify any picture they can capture on their mobile phone. Where does the content end up? Social newsfeeds. Take that display ads.

Original
Brands now have the opportunity to create original content that is own-able and can't be found anywhere else. This requires a great deal of planning as the content needs to be naturally connected to the brand. Original branded content can be useful or entertaining or both (see *Skylanders Boomcast). It can also be done in a semi journalist tone. We recently worked with Kellogg's on this type of "Brand Journalism" as part of their Olympics sponsorship. In this example the brand is part of the story but does not play the leading role. 

Consumer Generated
Personal publishing which arguably came before brand publishing has empowered millions of people to post an infinite amount of content into the digital realm. Consumer generated media rivals that of media created by the professionals and when tapped appropriately can authentically reinforce what a brand stands for. A recent example that I really like is what Disney is doing with their consumer generated content contest, Disney Side. 

Sponsored
Likely the most hotly debated form of content, sponsored content also goes by the name "native advertising" or specific to social, promoted posts. Simply put, there are three versions of sponsored—the traditional version (like display ads) or paid options from digital platforms like Facebook or Twitter and sponsored editorial working with a media company ranging from Buzzfeed to the Atlantic. 


It's time to move the "brand as media" discussion into more actionable territory. As attention shifts to newsfeeds and mobile streams—the stories we tell there need to be all the more compelling.  

*Activision is an Edelman client 

Related articles

http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2012/11/brand_media.html

Responsive Marketing: David Armano's view on the role of content

How Content Curation Will Make You a Content Marketing Champion

Five Considerations For Branded Content During Sensitive Times

Every Brand Will Need A Content Strategy

Lessons From Experience

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Somehow I missed the one year anniversary of my Experience Map.  Why is this even worth celebrating?  The Experience Map was only my second visual posted to this site (here is my first).  The story behind the map is pretty simple.  I was working closely with a traditional account planner at the time.  A really nice guy.  But we came from different worlds.  My background was primarily  interactive, combining lots of site work and some interactive marketing initiatives.  His background was from a big traditional agency—lots of experience working on Ads of all kinds.  We spoke different professional languages—so in an effort to bridge some of the gaps, I put my thinking into a visual format which I then called the Experience Map here.

Did it work?  Well sort of.  If definitely made the thinking more concrete and generated further discussions between both ourselves and our group.  I used this in addition to work samples that were in progress to illustrate ideas.  But then we both got busy and moved on to other work.

But that's not the end of the story.  The real story began when I uploaded it here.  You see, this site went pretty much unnoticed before the Experience Map came to town.  Before this, I was pointing to things I thought were cool, and talking about general stuff related to my field.  But uploading this image started a ripple effect which to this day hasn't stopped.  And it's changed how I view my profession.  Here are a few lessons from the Experience Map:

1. Social Media is a Free Marketplace of Ideas
If you put something out in the social media space which has a high level of perceived value—it's likely it will be distributed.   The Experience Map was picked up on several key sites and downloaded hundreds of times.  It didn't matter that I was a "nobody". The only thing that mattered was the content.  Create something of value—and it will be distributed.  Create something of no value—and you'll be talking to yourself.

2. Google Can Help You Own Your Ideas
If you work in search engine optimization and you haven't investigated how text-rich blogs, wiki's etc. can influence major search engines like Google, then you need to take your head out of the sand.  Type "Experience Map" in Google and my original post will come up as #1 in the search results.  This was a valuable lesson for me—maybe it's a new way of coining phrases and putting digital fingerprints to an idea.  The more popular a blog or site—the higher the placement in organic search.

3. Giving = Getting
On the link of the original post you can download a full sized version of the PDF.  This means that theoretically, someone could download the PDF, print it out and hang it on their wall.  If someone passing by asked where they got it from—they could be dishonest.  Maybe this even happened.  I don't know.  But what I do know is that by giving something away—I got something back.  What I got back was links, feedback, name recognition and even some new relationships.  Some call this social currency.  I didn't know what that was before my lesson with the Experience Map.  But once I understood the value of this currency and the influence that comes with it—I felt my eyes had been opened.  In fact, it was this visual that helped me find my voice and personal brand. 

I gave something away.  What I got back was worth so much more.

I could probably go on—but you get the idea.  This is the stuff that the democratization of the internet is made from.  Despite all of the buzzwords it can be boiled down to simple benefits.  Sure you can read about it in books like the Long Tail.  But experiencing it first hand is something else all together.  Ironic that one of my first teachers in this space was both the Experience Map—and experience itself.

Oh—wait.  Before I hit publish can you do me favor?  I literally just got an e-mail from Mat Giordano, who is 24 and fresh out of design school.  Can you check out his blog?  Thanks.

Visual Library

Doing a little housekeeping and I've updated my visuals in a single slideshow.  Every 4 months or so, I'll update the slideshow and re-post here.  Gotta love slideshare.

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.

Thought Bubbles

Last Friday I wrote about our speaking engagement at Loyola University.  The post generated what I think is some of the most interesting discussion on this blog.  I'd like to share some of the thoughts as they deserve to exist outside of the comments area, but before doing so—here's a question (and answer):

What if we all live in our own bubbles?  Each and every last one of us.  We're not omnipotent beings—we are restricted by the boundaries of our own humanity.  In short, we can only know as much as we can absorb.  And in this age of information, there is a lot to absorb.  Too much actually.

BUT

Our bubbles reflect what we know, don't know and what we need to know.  If we claim to be marketers, advertisers, designers, public relations or communications professionals—we must take it upon ourselves to fully comprehend the significance of a lone consumer who takes on a huge company with nothing more than a blog and tape recorder.   We must make the effort to search out these stories on a daily basis, especially when they are reported by mainstream media (or not).  We must study, and learn from them.  We must learn from each other. 

WE ARE ALL STUDENTS

Teachers, professors, authors, managers, thought leaders, bloggers etc. can all help us learn.  But making sure your personal bubble is where it needs to be is up to you, the individual.

[Stepping down from Soapbox now]

Enjoy the comments.

"School is, was and--unless the teaching profession wakes up and starts embracing change even if it threatens their jobs--will always be insular and inward looking. Theory, over practice."
gabby

"I'm so surprised that a bunch of college students are better versed in theory and buzzwords than in real world examples. On the other hand, these kids are at (or at least near) the epicenter of the content creation movement, so maybe it is surprising after all - not because they should be learning about it in their marketing course but because they should be living it."
Greg Verdino

"It was not till I got outside and graduated that my eyes were opened to this whole new world. "
Matt Haverkamp

"Do you believe we are victims of our own myopia?"
Cam Beck

"I can't tell you how many times I talk to agency marketers who have never heard of these 'classic' power consumer moments."
jessica

"Professors need to get beyond the security of their assigned readings and add new books and articles to their selections for every new class. And then discussions need to center on what is happening in today's marketing world."
Lewis Green

"As I speak to other marketers, and even clients at big-name companies, they are so busy with their own plans they are really not aware of social media. It seems like a no-brainer to many of us because we spend time tracking (or engaging in) it. My typical clients still don't even have it on their radar screen."
Becky Carroll

"When I was teaching business courses on the undergrad level, every student had to go out and locate a busines, and it's owner, or manager, or C-level person, to link up with once a week, every week"
peter vajda

"Personally, I have learned a lot more practical knowledge through blogs, social media, open source sharing, etc. than I have from most of my courses. The classes provide a foundation, but unless you actively engage in building upon that foundation, it all seems somewhat useless. It’s like pouring concrete to start a house and then never returning to continue construction."
Ryan Karpeles

"Schools must change. Embrace Non-textbooks as a reliable learning tools. Create "new-marketing" classes. Have classes dedicated to blogs. Have marketing speakers on a weekly basis."
Jonathan Chamberlin

"I think professors aught to have a list of at least 10-20 marketing/biz blogs that students should be reading daily. If the concern on reading a blog is too much, start them off with Seth's "Small Is The New Big." Let them think out of the box with Wozniak's book about design."
Nathan

"My students are given reading lists equivalent to 'No one got fired for recommending Microsoft': the dead hand of academe looms large, and there is more emphasis on correct bibliographic referencing than on imagination or even relevance."
Vee

"Remember how at your Digitas NY prez only like 3 people (in interactive) knew who Seth Godin is? Yep, we live in a bubble."
CK

"I've met with many high-profile marketing executives over the past few months and I can assure you that you would be surprised by their narrow marketing - and marketplace - knowledge, and hence, perspectives. They are simply way too busy with their own "marketing bubbles" to care."
Tom Asacker

"I did a presentation to an advertising class at a large university last November...In a show of hands no one in the class knew who lonelygirl15 was and when I stated talking about Second Life the looks I got were priceless."
daniel9223

"I just started regularly reading several trend-watching, news-sharing, marketing, and advertising blogs this year and it's really helped me to think more creatively. I only wish I would have started sooner..."
Amitha Raman

"I think this whole issue isn't about: "I can't believe you haven't heard of X."
It's all about: "I can't believe you haven't TRIED to hear about X."
Ryan Karpeles

Meet Ed: Experience Diamond

Update: Check out this story about a little boy named "Eddie".  Delightful.

Time to put some principles from Made to Stick into practice.  Last year, I posted a visual of The Holy Trinity of Experience Design.  I've been wanting to update this for a while.  Basically it was inspired by Kevin Mullet's  Essence of Rich Internet Applications with my own touches added to it.  But it was missing a few things.  Namely that the experiences we create need to stand the test of time, adapt and evolve.  In other words—be sustainable (See Don Norman's comment on the trinity post).  Also, while I like the idea and sound of the word Storytelling, I think what we're really doing is Storyswapping.  So, I also made a change there to stress sharing.

But the reason why I reference Made to Stick is because I wanted a simple way to recall this.  And since I envisioned it being a diamond vs. the original triangle—ED (Experience Diamond) was conceived.

So, meet Ed.  Hope you make his acquaintance. (and hope I can too!)

Second Lifecycle

Agile Creativity

Think about it.  If you never planned a thing in your life, never had any goals or aspirations—never thought about your next move, you might find yourself in a constant state of improvisation.  On the other hand, you can try to plan your life out to the last detail—but life has a way of working out in ways you could have never planned for.

Why should creativity be any different?

Agile Creativity is about planning for a variety of scenarios—anticipating and developing a strategy, but not being so rigid as to lose the capacity to improvise when things don't go as planned.  In the overlap exists a state of agility, founded off a core set of guiding principals—yet flexible enough to adapt to changes in the creative ecosystem.

Easier said than done?  You bet.

2006 In Picture

2006 is almost over and I need your help (feel free to pass this around).  I'd like to do one more visual before the end of the year, but I need YOU to provide the content in the form of an answer to this question:

What was the most significant event/aspect of 2006 in regards to marketing, advertising or user experience?

2006 was a big year between YouTube, fake blogs, 2.0 startups, the design renaissance, traditional media meltdowns and the overall customer experience.  What stands out to you?  Why?  You can be as specific or broad as you like.

I don't know what the visual will look like yet.  I'm depending on your comments for the fuel.  But I have a favor to ask.  Many of the readers here do just that—read.  I would like to invite you to participate.  Even if it's only for this time.  Some of you work in related industries for competitors.  This is a personal blog and I'm interested in personal perspectives.

If it makes sense I may use some of your words in the visual with credit of course.  So what do you say?

12 Consumer Values for Your Wall

Here’s something to pin up on your cube or office wall Download 12_values.pdf .  The next time you work on a major marketing or interactive initiative—ask yourself this question: “is what I’m doing hitting at least some of the consumer values on this list”?  The 12 Consumer Values to Drive Technology-related Product and Service Innovations was created by the Washington, DC-based research and consulting firm Social Technologies.  My rationale for putting this into wall-friendly visual is simple: I think agencies run the risk of infatuation with YouTube and the temptation to put all their eggs in one viral video basket.  And we have to be careful about not neglecting other areas of marketing innovation.

Take this recent story from AdAge:

“With not a penny of paid media and in less than a month, "Dove Evolution," a 75-second viral film created by Ogilvy & Mather, Toronto, for the Unilever brand has reaped more than 1.7 million views on YouTube and has gotten significant play on TV talk shows "Ellen" and "The View" as well as on "Entertainment Tonight." It's also brought the biggest-ever traffic spike to CampaignForRealBeauty.com, three times more than Dove's Super Bowl ad and resulting publicity last year, according to Alexa.com.”

Now in my opinion, that video was simply amazing.  A powerful, compelling story that draws you in and inspires you to share it with others.  But what about the experience it links you to?  Complete with E-cards and a message board, CampaignForRealBeauty.com is a respectable site—but could it be doing more when you apply the 12 values to it?

My point here is that the gi-normous success of YouTube may tempt the Ad industry to hyper-focus on viral videos as an inexpensive way to generate buzz (and ROI).  Nothing wrong with this at all—but we cannot forget that at the end of the day, a video is a passive experience.  It can make us laugh, cry and want to share it with others—we just can’t interact with or actively engage with a video.  In contrast, you CAN interact with YouTube itself.  Imagine if an agency had come up with that idea?

So on that note, here is the full list as conceived by Social Technologies.  It’s worth chewing on.

User creativity
Consumers increasingly want to create, augment, or influence design and content, and share these creations with their peers. Supporting user creativity will be increasingly important to consumer technology, and will become more mainstream in coming decades.

Personalization
Consumers will increasingly look for products and services that align with their specific personal needs and preferences—whether in the aesthetics of a product or in its functional design. More goods will be created to match individuals’ unique specifications.

Simplicity
Simplicity will have growing value for consumers confronted with information overload, time stress, and technological complexity. Simplicity’s influence is already evident in new, stripped-down devices that offer just a few functions, as well as in minimalist interfaces that conceal breathtaking complexity. The common denominator of all these efforts is that they are human-centered—and thus easy to learn and integrate into busy lives.

Assistance
As consumers are bombarded with more tasks, choices, and information, and as demographic changes such as aging reshape consumer markets, they are looking to assistive technologies for help. Consumers will seek to bolster and extend their natural abilities—with technologies ranging from pharmaceuticals that enhance mental performance to robot aides for the elderly.

Appropriateness
Products and services will need to embrace the principle of appropriateness to ensure that they are suitably designed for users with varying physical needs, resources, cultural characteristics, literacy levels, etc. Appropriateness will aid in the spread of technology products and services to new markets and to diverse user segments.

Convenience
Already well-established in mature markets, demand for convenience will rise as a technology value for consumers all over the world. Consumers will look for technological products and services that give them what they want and need on demand and that reduce effort and relieve time pressure.

Connectedness
Connectedness gives consumers what they want, when they want it, and will grow exponentially with the expanding global information infrastructure. Consumers will look for products and services that seamlessly integrate with this global network.

Efficiency
Efficiency is the ratio of output to input—or, put simply, the ability to do more with less. It will become more important to technology as consumers search for products and services that let them manage emerging resource uncertainties, rising costs, and other pressures.

Intelligence
Intelligence will be enabled by innovations that increasingly shift information and decision-making burdens from the user to the device or service. The demand for greater intelligence will come in response to factors including complexity, aging, and the desire for personalized experiences.

Protection
Protection will be sought by consumers in a world that feels increasingly insecure. Consumers will look for technology-enabled products and services that strengthen their sense of personal security and protect their families, homes, wealth, and privacy.

Health
Consumers will look to technological products and services to maintain and, increasingly, improve their health and wellness. The search for health-enabling solutions will extend beyond traditional health and medical products and services to include more of the things consumers use in their everyday lives, whether at home, work, or play.

Sustainability
Consumers will increasingly look for products and services that embrace sustainability—reducing the “human footprint” on the environment while maintaining quality of life. A variety of technologies offer ways to minimize resource use, waste, and pollution while improving human welfare.

Visualizing L+E

Well isn't this poetic justice?  After all of the visualizations I do on this blog, I can now see the blog itself represented in a visual format thanks to Websites As Graphs.

So according to this little applet—here is what you are looking at in regards to http://darmano.typepad.com/

Blue: for links (the A tag)
red: for tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
green: for the DIV tag
violet: for images (the IMG tag)
yellow: for forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
orange: for linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
black: the HTML tag, the root node
gray: all other tags

Yeah. It's over my head too.  But looks pretty.  Flowery almost.

Tip of the hat to Asi.

Geek 2.0

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I apologize in advance for all of the "2.0" posts recently—but I couldn't help myself.  My recent "Geek Dinner" experience impacted me more than I anticipated.  Sure it was cool that I got to rub elbows (literally) with Robert Scoble and some other Silicon Valley shakers—but what really got my gears turning was the notion of what passes for as a "Geek" these days.

Geekdom, is nothing like what I remember it to be from High school.  Today, it seems that the most cutting edge, tech savvy and just plain "cool" people around proudly wear a "Geek badge".  But to me, it seems like it's an evolution of "Geek culture".  Geeking out in the classic sense means going gaga over our gadgets.  Learning how to tweak them to their highest potential.  And if you think of it, most of the "2.0" Web applications out there that are fueling this whole movement are created and designed by... Geeks.

But these aren't your parents Geeks.  These are the Geeks that invent the Facebook's Firefoxes and Flickr's of the world.  These are the Geeks that have taken Silicon Valley by storm.  They are also the Geeks who are coveted and sought after by smart companies such as Google. 

And here is the kicker.  Though the comfort level with technology is a pre-requisite, Geeks can be anyone.  You can be a Design Geek, a Writer Geek—heck, you can even be a Marketing Geek.

In fact, maybe you should.  In marketing, when we look at how Web applications like You Tube have totally interrupted the Advertising model—maybe it makes sense to "Geek out" and really grasp how these emerging media technologies are feeding the appetite of consumers at ease with their digital lifestyles.

Maybe we're all really Geeks in the end (or need to be). 

And if that's the case—we better figure out how to create the right kinds of experiences and tell the most compelling stories to our own Geeky selves.

Visual Language is Universal

This is one of the dozens of versions of my visuals which  have been translated in another language.  Found this particular one over at the Russian PR Community's Journal.  It validates the theory that people are visual.  That we need to be shown as well as told.  I can't tell you how many languages I've seen my visuals translated in.  French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew, Italian... it's pretty cool.

And it begs the following question.  Are we over-doing it with bullets and copy alone in the hopes of rapidly articulating ideas?  Think about the presentations that we do.  The amount of text-laden slides.  Is there a more visual way to tell the story in addition to text alone?  If the visuals on this site can be taken and translated into virtually any language—then think about the potential of leveraging visuals in our own presentations targeted at native audiences.

Working Class Blogger

Work.  Blog.  Life.  How does it all come together?  It's different for everyone.  Here's a simplified snapshot of how it works for me.  Download working_blogger.pdf

User Experience Building Blocks

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Here is a simple exercise.  Don't overthink this one.  Let's say you've completed the strategy phase, you've briefed the team, you've found that core insight and you have a concept that you are ready to execute against.  Before you site down and put that mouse to work—take a step back and think of the experience you are about to architect and design.  Think of it as a house.

What is the foundation you are going to build it upon?  It should be the core needs of the business, brand and the customer of course.  Now what will be the core "pillars" that will support the entire experience?  There are a number of ways you can break down the experience.  For the example above (a financial services site) I chose these:

Visual Design
Photography
Interaction (included both motion design and interaction design)
Copy

These are interchangeable, but served the purpose for this particular example.  The purpose was to think about the execution before we got knee deep into it.  The adjectives such as "simple", "organic" and "clean" are tangible terms that resonate with designers.

So the next time you're ready to execute.  When the brief has been briefed and the strategy has been strategized.  Think about the house you are about to build.  Your users might have to live in it for a while.

Like this visual?  More here.

Creating Compassionate Designers

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As the quality of digital experience improves, the value of creating passionate users is becoming clear to brands wishing to thrive in the "experience economy".  Provide an experience that is both useful, usable, desirable, and differentiated and you will create demand for your brand and delight your customers.

But if passionate users (or customers, or consumers) is the "WHAT"—the end result which we aspire to attain, then what about the "HOW" in regards to the role in which design plays in all of this?  And I'm not just talking about visual design here.  As designers of digital experiences, what are we doing to develop compassion toward the users we are designing for?

Ok, if you are going to get defensive while reading this article, now might be the right time.  If you are an Interaction Designer, you probably feel that your whole existence is dedicated to meeting the wants and needs of users.  If you are a Visual Designer, you might feel that you possess heightened sensitivities which allow you to be more "empathetic" while designing for your audience.

Well, if you feel you are doing all you can to be a compassionate designer, then there is no need to continue reading.  But if you think you can do more, then read on.  I have this theory.  My theory is that when we feel that we get really good at something.  When we begin to consider ourselves "experts", that is when we become "at risk" for losing (or de-emphasizing) our compassion for the customer—the people we design for.

Think about it this way.  It happens to Doctors.  The people who swear to uphold Hippocratic oaths.  The same people who sometimes hold the key to life or death.  When a Surgeon gets so good at his or her craft, sometimes compassion takes a back seat to the honorable goal of saving lives.  Sometimes bedside manners become compromised in the process of moving on to the next patient.  It's not intentional or out of malice—it just happens.  All professionals are vulnerable to this.  When we get really good at something, we're tempted to think "I've done this hundreds of times—I know what I'm doing."

We are tempted to think "this is my area of expertise".

Usability, Interface Design.  Visual Design.  Motion Design.  Copywriting. All of the above.  Let's be honest with ourselves.  How many times have we made a design decision that was in the interest of winning an award rather than winning over the customer?  Or how many times have we included a deliverable because it validated our role as opposed to validating the life of a consumer?

We've all done it. Oh, you haven't?  Liar.

What exactly does it mean to be a compassionate designer?  It means doing things that help us not only understand, but relate to the users we design for.  To feel for them.  To put ourselves in their shoes, even if our own lives are totally opposite from them.  Sound simple?  It is. You just have to do it.

Here are some practical ways we can develop compassion for our users:

1. Get out of the office
Put down that design magazine and boxes+arrows article.  Go out into the real world.  Watch.  Listen.  Observe.

2. Talk to someone
Talk to the people you are designing for.  Chances are you won’t be able to relate to them at first.  When you get to this point—then you know you’re doing something right.

3. Eat, Sleep, Dream Curiosity
Be curious.  Be very curious.  Don’t know how? Find yourself a five-year-old, and hang out with them for a while.  Then ask the same questions they do.

4. Do what they do
Are you designing for stay-at-home moms?  Take the day off and go to a park.  Hover around schools during drop off time.  Walk a mile in their shoes.  Better yet, just walk with them.

Several years ago, I found myself in a spirited discussion with my Creative Director over a design we were proposing for a large B2B distributor.   The design was minimal.  It was all about speed and efficiency.  It was designed for a person who didn't want to spend a lot of time ordering supplies, and had better things to do with their time.  It was designed for the type of person who could not care how many times you told them "we're here to help".  It was designed for someone who needs proof, every day.  "You want to help me?  Make it easy, fast, and reliable".

Now my Creative Director didn't like what he was seeing.

"Where's the value proposition?" 

"Where are the pictures of people being helped?"  "If I'm coming to this Website for the first time, I have no idea what this brand stands for".   All noble concerns.  Only one problem.  He didn't take the time to get to know the customers.  He felt he knew them.  He made assumptions about them from everything he thought he knew in his career (and personal experience), but he never even asked me about them.  I toured the distribution centers, attended scores of user tests, and made the effort to reach out to every contractor I could get my hands on.  Luckily I had a couple in my family.

The design direction in many ways went against my personal preferences.  It was visually appealing but lacked a "story".  It did so because I knew in my heart that the best story we could tell these customers was to not tell them one at all.  The most compassionate thing we could do was show them the story.   

But this wasn't only about the customer, it was also about the brand.

The brand stood for "getting the job done".  And that's just what the site did.  The fact that it lacked "lifestyle" imagery only reinforced to users that the site "understood" them.  It wasn't talking to them about helping.  It was doing it with very little lip service.  Which is exactly what they needed to experience.

If we feel for the people we design for—we will do what is in their best interest.  And that is being a compassionate designer.

Influence Ripples 2.0

Yet another stab at the blog levels of influence idea.  There are multiple ripples overlapping, happening in a three dimensional space—in real time.  If this were animated, the ripples would not dissapear, but radiate. 
However more recent ripples would come into focus as new thoughts, conversations, and interactions happen over time.

Influenced by:

"it's a model - but one that should recognize a lot of other overlapping ponds. {worm holes might be another analogy)."
Craig Lefebvre

"One thing that I did wonder in your diagram was whether it was true that there was only one pool of influence… "
leisa.reichelt

"The sphere (blog) has a pulse from the inside, various sizes, various intensities and frequencies... making ripples, or making waves."
mindblob

"My guess is that it's more 3D than that (with time as another axis?) but this is a really good start"
Seth Godin.

"One conceptual problem I have with the ripple concept is ripples disappear, where as the ripples in the blogosphere form permanent records of memes and ideas."
karl long

"The influence sphere is constantly changing."
Toby

"It strikes me that topics simultaneously appear across the blogosphere ... in a zeitgeist kind of way -- resulting in the emergence of conversational topics that begin, leap and skip from one blog to another.
Gavin Heaton"

Influence Ripples

An update to "Levels of Influence" Inspired by:

"- but is there a place for circles in this sphere? Using a worn analogy - like ripples from a pebble dropped in the stream."
Bob

"The ripple concept is a great one ... especially when you start to see these as a number of conversations happening simultaneously. As the waves overlap and hit each other, we get extra flavour added to the story, we open paths to new audiences and also allow the sphere of influence to expand or contract according to its relevance to the audience. -- like rain drops hitting the surface of a lake."
Gavin

Comments welcome.

Update I:
From Caffiene Marketing

"This ripple concept is amazing and brings back thoughts I had about the sphere of influence in the blogging community. About a month I was discussing how best selling author Seth Godin of such books as “Purple Cow” and “Free Prize Inside” can post a thought in his blog and have thousands of other bloggers responding and paraphrasing his work. His “sphere of incluence” puts him at the top of the charts when it comes to the online world of bloggers.

Surely being a best selling author automatically puts his ’sphere of influence’ towards the top. But how can a common blogger just starting without amazing credentials reach a higher sphere of influence? Producing high quality content and resourceful tools is a start. Unique content or tools can have a ripple effect. One person might find your tool useful and tell another person and so on.

The link-back popularity of your tool or article will directly have an effect on your search engine rankings as well. Those bloggers with pre-exposure, such as acclaimed authors and heads of corporate agencies will often automatically get a large scale of exposure. The key to achieving a greater sphere of influence over the blogging community and therefore your blog’s traffic is to create the unique. To create what others are not talking about. Simply put, to be yourself."

...And a great thought from Stephen Downes in relation to the previous "Levels" post:

"Influence is a function of four properties (and people who have read my work before will be very familiar with these properties):

1. Diversity - a person who communicates with a diverse audience will be more influential than a person who communicates with a unifo0rm audience.

2. Autonomy - a person who is free to speak his or her own mind, and is not merely parroting some 'official view', will have more influence.

3. Openness - a person who writes in multiple languages, or who can be read on multiple platforms, or who is not limited to a single communications channel, will have more influence.

4. Connectivity - a person you can communicate with, and who will listen to your point of view, will have more influence than a person who does not."

 

6 Months + 20 Visuals Later

Well, it's been a little over six months since the launch of Logic + Emotion.  In that time, I've learned a great deal about how the Social Media Network functions.  I've made a bunch of new friends, and I've been featured on some Podcasts while steadily climbing up a list or two.  And hey, I might have even gotten a little addicted along the way, but as Advergirl says, "what's a little addiction among friends"?

It's been a fun ride so far.  And I look forward to new bloggy adventures on the horizon.  As a very small token of appreciation, I've put together all the visualizations that have been created thus far, in one place.  Feel free to download, snag and use on your next powerpoint.  It's all open source as they say.  Credit is appreciated, but not required.  Thanks for reading.  And an even bigger thanks for participating.

Paths To Experience Design
From Information Architects to Art Directors and everything in between.

Experience Map
As seen on Businessweek.

Visualizing The Social Media Network
Information exchange between community clusters.

Interaction Design Made Simple
Interaction Design de-mystified.

Customer Logic + Emotion
Satisfying the rational and emoitonal.

T-Shaped Creativity
Creativity to a "T".

In Around and Outside The Sandbox
Blurring the agency lines.

Holy Trinity of Digital Experience Design
Three essentials truths.

Sharing Ideas in Flat Vs. Round worlds
It's a Flat world after all.

The 4C's of Blogging
Community, Consitancy, Content, Clarity.

Brand Love
A Holistic Marketing love affair.

People.  People Who Need Lables.
It's the custoconsumuser, silly.

Creativity 2.E
The New Creative Mind meets T-Shaped creativity.  Very dangerous.

Power Consumer is the New PC
That's right.  Power Consumers.  You heard it here first.

Visualizing The Tipping Point
Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople make up the Social Media Network.

Human Hierarchy + Creative Collaboration in the workplace.
Traditional and non traditional team stuctures.

People Respond: The New PR
PR and the Social Media Network.

Navigators, Explorers + Engaged Participants
Multiple mindests for multiple personality users.

Silos + Overlaps
Traditional silos and overlapping disciplines.

Brand Affinity Through Stories + Experience
Experience People +Storytellers working together.