Compact the Content

Problem: Showing the buzz and all the comments (even just 10 – and how are they decided?) is really noisy. Particularly when you follow people who get serious engagement like Jason Calacanis, Pete Cashmore and “Mr. Noisy” Robert Scoble. Users will decide when they want to read the comments. Result: more content is read. I do not see a decrease in engagement. The people who don’t like to read comments were not going to read them anyway.

Filter Out Channels

Problem: Some people are still using multiple social media tools. They want to continue to use them for what they like to use them for and they are not coming to Buzz to have that content duplicated. OK. Let them remove the content they do not want to see. Caveat: They can’t remove Buzz original content.

Here’s a quick and easy way to remove the content you do not care about.

Clicking “Filter Channels Options” takes your to this screen that allows you to set options globally and also to change your mind if you decide you want the content back. (Yeah, I grabbed the channels from FriendFeed).

Make Buzz Post to Twitter

That’s game over.

excerpt from the #specwork09 discussion

• Sessions begin with definition of business problems. We actually go into them hoping to define a business problem or series of problems to solve. It is not about “we want to design something” yet.
• Audience Intelligence teams learn the needs, size, segments and location of the marketplace.
• Strategists start to define the idea and the brand pillars or align the idea to current brand pillars. Design, Audience Intelligence, Media, and Analytics resources are involved to protect design interests, media availability and possibilities, and success measurement.
• Consensus on ideas is built.
• Campaigns are defined. Briefs are written.
• Analytics teams figure out how to measure success, spot trends and forecast futures.
• Now we design!
• Execute
• Measure
• Rinse
• Repeat

Through this process a connection is built between the agency and the client. The agency treats the client’s brand as their own and takes a level of responsibility for success. The designers are part of the strategy. They understand the process. They can discuss the pillars with the planners and strategists. They get true audience insight in a way that a single specification sheet cannot bring to light. They can talk to the measurement folks about how we define success. They weave themselves into the brand fabric and in some cases they follow a similar process across projects.

Your brand, your campaign, your SUCCESS depend on your experience and your marketing. The way I see it, you can pay a premium [or put together a creative model that allows an agency to be payed based on your success] for any agency that is thoughtfully integrated or you can throw it into the one-off crowdsourcing blender and hope you get a smoothie.

Expensive : Complicated : Useless

These are words they have used to describe segmentation! Further investigation usually reveals that their segmentation study was conducted so long ago that no one really remembers why. In one case, some muckety-muck told a group of analysts to do it and so they did exactly what he told them to do. No one really knew why it was being done.

Of course then nosy consultants like me come along and ask the question. Why did you do this segmentation? What does it all mean? It used to shock me when they would say that “it’s just the way we have always done it”.

Segmentation is not about grouping data for the sake of grouping data. Segmentation should have purpose. It should be used to solve a particular problem. It is useful for determining sales regions/territories, marketing message and campaign optimization, risk management, web visitor behavior classification etc etc etc.

At the end of the day, your segmentation should tell your group or organization exactly how to focus on a particular audience. Keep in mind that an organizational segmentation is typically a pretty intense exercise, but that you might segment campaign audiences or web traffic on the fly and change it to suit your needs as campaign messaging changes or web traffic ebbs and flows.

Just remember that if your segmentation model does not include factors that drive the problem that you are trying to solve, you should not expect it to be highly actionable. I often am asked “Hey, can you do something with this data? How about a segmentation?” and am given Dun and Bradstreet profiles and customer/prospect information and little else. There is a lot of directional information I can derive about the way that you do business from this data, but I’m sort of left licking my finger and holding it in the air when you ask me how to use the segmentation to drive your media. If the segmentation is actionable, I would say that you should focus on your core, growth and niche segments.

To succeed:

• Start with a problem to solve. It can be as simple as not knowing where the company is the most profitable.
• Insist on historical transaction data that includes both demographic and actionable information. For example, profit margins for sales, conversions for campaigns and goal related metrics for web sites.
• Make sure that you understand the segments that were created and that they make sense to your business. There are n ways to look at data sets. They should be easy to understand as well as to act on. Too many segments can be unwieldy and difficult to act on. Too few can leave you without focus.

The awesomeness of your segmentation depends on following the aforementioned. There are other subtleties to this kind of exercise that are learned over time, but these are basics akin to boil water, put tea bag in cup, pour water.

Happy segmenting!

Goats

Johnathan Rosenberg’s Goats is a comic about Johnathan Rosenberg, Phillip, beer, Satan, monkeys, beer, aliens, popes, chickens, Hitler, robots, goats and programming. If that’s not a formula for success, I don’t know what is.

Questionable Content

Jeph Jacques masterpiece is a look at the crunchy world of indie rock with occasional forays into death metal. The characters embody an Amherst collegesque lifestyle, which I suspect comes directly from the author. Jeph’s strips are always accompanied by a transparent and somewhat ego centric look into his mind in the right sidebar. His protagonist, Martin is a nice guy – indie rocker with nearly no aspirations except to play in his band. The hook is Martin’s wierd relationships with a handful of women with social issues that they wear like badges of honor. The tech side of indie is represented by Martin’s small, robotic sidekick, an Anthro PC called Pintsize. Jeph isn’t afraid to mock his own formula through Pintsize, or any of his characters for that matter. The complexity of the relationships alone are good for a belly laugh a week, but don’t stop there. Jeph also has a recommended listening section that is worthy of its OWN site.

Scary Go Round

If I had to rank them, this would probably be my favorite. John Allison fully utilizes the power of his cheeky British utility belt. He writes women better than anybody. Shelley Winters antics, including frequent resurrection, make her one of the most interesting women on the web. Shelley’s interests include adventuring, writing fan fiction including “The Saddest Wookie”, pushing the limits of expense accounts, judge fearing and fair judging. The comic is full of delicious political and corporate satire including insight into how the Tackleford Mayor’s office “works” and its diplomatic relations with Robotania. Shelley’s friends are interesting and range from the King of the Vagabonds to a young inventor with Indiana Jones meets Back to the Future sensibilities. John also periodically changes between analog and digital means of creation which both astound and annoy the pants off of me. I put him on a short list of web personalities that I would like to have a beer with.

Wigu

Wigu is the story of a young boy’s adventures with his family and the characters of a cartoon show that actually exists in a parallel universe. The family is beyond dysfunctional and hilarity ensures. Wigu himself is a genius and creates a spaceship called the Googel Maverick which allows him to meet Topato Potato and his colleague, Sheriff Pony. You can’t explain shit like this. Jeffrey Rowland is ridiculously brilliant, but I suspect he is one of those people who could justify cutting his own ear off and mailing it to a love interest. I pro actively filed a preemptive restraining order against him even though we have never met. In fact, I got the template from his website.

For each of these, I recommend starting at the beginning and reading a week’s worth each day. If you have read any of these, what is your take?

I love the UPS whiteboard campaign.

The ads are mesmerizing they are sticky and the creative does not get in the way of the message.
The timing is impeccable. Andy Azula, the artist in the ads and creative director for The Martin Agency, makes what he is doing look easy. The tongue-in-cheek humor has longevity and is the inspiration for some ridiculous youtube knockoffs.

The Martin Agency got almost everything right. The music is perfect. Nearly. You see, the band is called…

THE POSTAL SERVICE.

Google introduced a new line of googlevative designs for their iGoogle personal portal. They assembled some of the best known designers, artists and musicians to build a series of trendy skins as part of Google’s global effort to allow its users a way to make their experience unique. Bonus they can also express their love for some of their favorite artists.

First movers include hip-hop designer and baseball asterixer Mark Ecko, Oscar de la Renta, world-famous Australian baby photographer, Anne Geddes, global lifestyle brand and female power advocate, Dianne von Furstenberg, Dolce&Gabbanna, Chilean painter, Coldplay, Mario Toal and Korean illustrator 스노우캣, aka Snowcat.

But why stop at iGoogle? These are some of the top creatives in the world. Imagine a combination of their eye (or ear) catching design sensibilities combined with the user experience ninjitsu err barbarianism The Barbarian Group; or … the sky is the limit.