Here is me, modelling my kidney stones for Wired. Maybe I should release the stones themselves under a creative commons license, maybe they can be put to good use somewhere.

Source:

P.S. I’ve gone back to writing silly stuff on twitter. Check it out.

While some of the fundamental marketing questions still need to be answered (do users associate this clip with Dove? Will/Does it influence purchase decisions / loyalty and more…), its phenomenal viral exposure cannot be argued. A powerful demonstration of potential.

The distortion of body images when representing beauty is a very old tradition (If I remember correctly, Michelangelo’s Adam on the Sistine Chapel misses a rib and sits in an anatomically impossible, yet arguably flattering position). However, there is no doubt that in our times the very rigid types of female looks represented by mass media, and further distorted using digital wizardry, has become an oppressive force threatening the emotional, and often physical well being of women everywhere. (Some thoughtful words on the subject and comments worth reading on Dana Boyd’s blog )

The strength and appeal of the subject is apparent in the ripple effect of user created content around the same theme. The Dove clip drove many web users, especially personal bloggers, to try and explore digitally manipulating themselves. You can find videos in the related videos list of the clip on you-tube.

Liat Bar-On, who is among Israel’s most widely read personal bloggers (placing her in the top-10 will be a careful estimate) created an interesting project that takes this exercise a step further.
Bar-On uploaded untouched photographs of herself to Flickr and called upon users to modify her image with flattering, yet quite alien, results. Liat’s blog, written in Hebrew, often deals with feminine identity and body perception themes, but since her Photoshock project is largely visual, you can enjoy it even if you don’t read Hebrew. Many comments on flickr say – “you are better off without the Photoshop treatment”.

I find the user created responses to Dove fascinating, it is as if through retouching themselves, and manipulating their own digital representation, users can reaffirm their feeling in their true body, and experience an apparent sense of liberation through mutating themselves, looking at it and being able to recognise how ridiculous and distorted standards have become.

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Foot-note: Cyberspace’s role in the way users project, explore and develop their identity through personal expression and social interaction is a favourite subject. In an article I published about the subject about two years ago, my main argument was that the basic experience of the self online is a contradictory mix of a sense of liberation (the opportunity to reinvent yourself, being free from historical prejudices you may have collected or are related to your social group etc.) and a feeling of anxiety for pretty much the same reasons (the pressure of getting across right, losing your familiar social assets, the sense of your body etc.). It’s interesting how users tap the different poles of this experience as they explore their individuality.

Technorati Tags: viral marketing, dove, dove evolution, user created content, user generated content, UGC, identity, body, perception

1. Assi Sharabi is an anthropologistsocial-psychologist-come-planner, who keeps getting cool ideas like analysing the youtube leader board.
2. Anecdote is narrative lead organisational consulting group-blog from Australia.
3. Nova Spivack writes dense musings about the web and points to thought provoking science news.
4. Raph Koster’s ideas about gaming are too good to be kept just for that. Let’s steal them for marketing.
5. Ben Hammresley is renaissance action guy. Coding for the guardian, Snapping in Afghanistan and writing. I’m sure his upcoming Octet book will kick ass.

For Hebrew recommendations, I have another blogday post in my Hebrew blog.

Technorati Tags: blogday, blogday2006

Well, I said this was going to be a low traffic blog, and I certainly over-delivered…

Apologies.

Extra-curricular projects also demanded attention. Notes.co.il, a blog platform, just about doubled traffic in the last 6 months or so. This amount of attention naturally requires some management, a sign that the project matures. Additionally, I had the pleasure of doing some worFoxyTunese FoxyTunes people, probably one of the coolest Israeli web start-ups out there.

What to expect over the coming months?
There’s a series of short posts in draft stage about marketing and stories. Focusing on “advanced aspects” of marketing communications and storytelling. There’s a (grateful) Basecamp case study, some viral marketing ideas, and if my courage doesn’t betray me – since the marketing babylon and sins posts were slightly on the ranting side – some ideas about what the alternative principles could be.

Shawn Callahan

I would add to your list a reluctance by gurus to reveal their sources. Miraculously great ideas materialise from nowhere.

Ed Omeara:

Failure to Validate: I can’t tell you how many of these folks come up with some statistically valid observations based on a qualitative study or deep dive on internal data, but never go to the trouble of validating it. “We interviewed 150 people and found these three factors were most important to them in the way they buy X”…but then they never go to the trouble of hypothesis testing or examining the variables in the real world! They just write-up a new book, register a trademark, develop a few seminar slides, and hit the speaking circuit.
Testing for Scale: And how many times have we read recently that Webinars are more efficient than trade shows? PR is more efficient than advertising? Blogging is more efficient than PR? And, then read sweeping declarations, quoted in all the best magazines, that obviously the leader on that function should “have a seat at the table”, and how every company should move all their wasted Wannamaker money into these more effective “strategies”? Yet, how many times does someone say, Gee, how much can that idea scale? or at what point doesn’t it work? How many email blasts are too many? Will 1000 more pr people really increase our revenue? How many blogs can a company meaningfully produce before everyone is stepping all over each other?

Cool follow-ups included David Maiser (strong comments in the discussion over there), and an interesting off-topic musing by Ken Boasso.

And in case you’re wondering about the Kawasaki Effect – in the two weeks following Guy’s post about 7000 new people visited this blog.
An unpredictable but awesome side effect also that this list was translated to other languages!
What can I say? The two years and a bit it took me to move from decision stage to actually getting this blog online are probably the most irresponsible thing I have done throughout my career.

Long term effect – the RSS counter broke the 200 barrier, which is really the highest compliment I could hope for.
Thank you for your attention, I will do my best to make it worth your while…

Technorati Tags: guykawasaki, sins, lists, memes, marketing, blogging

1. Anecdotal evidence: Guru’s are always telling nice (even great) stories, giving lots of examples and anecdotes. Those can be a lot of fun and quite educational, but most are too specific to work for you, and when you want a more thorough justification it’s not necessarily there, thanks to the invention of best practices…
2. Best practices: best practices are a result of reverse-engineering, so it’s like trying to figure out a cake recipe by using a lab analysis of its ingredients. Most are either too generalized to be helpful with specific problems, or too atomized to be restructured practically.
   “Best Practices” actually means: building on experience in a world of disruption and fluid rules ; Building on gut feelings on subjects that are built on complex, contradictory or just messy theoretical disciplines ; Using imitation in a world where very few players actually know what they’re doing and even they use a lot of trial and error.
   And when best practices are not powerful enough you can make them into rules…
3. Sweeping generalizations: Gurus love rules! The golden rule of this, the immutable laws of that. And on the other hand…
4. Sweeping negatives: Which doesn’t change the fact that we’re told that “X is dead” and “Y does not work anymore”, while “Z is just not enough” and besides – all the rules have changed, rules are meant to be broken etc… (see cliches)
5. 100% evangelism (or “I’m converted, let me go”): Many guru ideas are explained in the first dozen pages of their book, and can be quite powerful. While you look forward to their development, it tends not to happen, and the rest of the book is mostly reiteration and preaching to the choir (with frequent use of anecdotes, which are fortified by calling them “case studies”).
   Heck, maybe they are just saving the good stuff for the next time.
6. More bulk for your buck: this is about over beefing books, reports and presentations. Why are so many marketing books so thick when the first 30 page (and if to be honest – sometimes less) will suffice? If what you have to say can be summarised in a post – write a post, don’t sell me a whole book. (BTW – the best way to beef up a book? Yup – Anecdotal evidence)
7. New marketing is old marketing and vice versa: This is a cycle that has been spinning so fast, that it seems both new marketing and old/retro-marketing live together in perfect harmony side by side on the best seller list. Surprise! while some things change, some stay the same. It’s tempting.
   And you can always make the old look new and the new newer by creative use of rebranding…
8. Rebranding of jargon: take an old concept and wrap it up in a new metaphor. My current favs (=peeves) are “total branding”, “quantum branding”, and Lovemarks(TM!) – All different levels of rebranding branding, a problematic product to begin with.
   If that’s not enough – go extreme…
9. Fundamentalism: Many guru arguments are built as all powerful, all engulfing doctrines. It’s that “All you need is X” rhetoric (X being CRM, Branding, Positioning, Buzz Marketing, etc.).
   That’s just not true.
10. Evoking the geeks: Want your ideas to be more viral? Compare them to star wars (e.g. light side/dark side analogies), talk about blogs, and don’t forget there are other strong geek groups, like the spiritual geeks – have you sold your Ferrari today?
11. Cliches: In the new business environment of our rapidly changing landscape, complexity is increasing, uncertainty is the only certainty and consumers are fickle…
12. Round numbers: Gurus just love to make up lists. This list should have ended at either 10 or 12 points according to guru rules. Thus I’ve sinned myself, but since I was at 11 I had to either make it 12 or (good grief!) go all the way to 15 or 20.
    The more artistic version of list-making is letter-alignment – making acronyms out of words like SMART, or the 3 S’s and 7 P’s and the n N’s. Just by thinking about this phenomena I realise this list is getting way too silly, and must stop.

(damn, I forgot you never point – you pontificate!)
This list is obviously lovingly dedicated to all the gurus I came across through the years, many whom I obviously learned from and appreciate…

This post has been getting quite a lot of traffic from new visitors. Hello and welcome!
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Technorati Tags: marketing, communications, writing, marcom, strategy, storytelling, semiotics, branding, gurus, creativity, innovation, business, books, selfhelp, theory, humor, parody

There is no “unified purpose”, but purposes matter
I do not think for a moment that there is a unified purpose for blogs, nor that there should be. There are many different blogging subjects and blog genres. However, I do think that a closer look at the dynamics of each genre by itself is valuable.
This is something that isn’t happening often, as most quantitative analysis is “content neutral” by nature, and most of the other conversation in the centre of the public debate is heavily focused on: meta-blogging, PR, technology, media and other familiar subjects.

I also believe that while blogging, micropublishing and online identity management affects society as a whole regardless of content, “not all genres are created equal” and that some genres have a bigger implication on the face of blogging as a phenomena and on culture in general.
With that in mind, I mentioned in my talk some genres which I personally find interesting, and that are quite prominent, starting with personal journals (also mentioning creative writing blogs), and moving on to talk about the “blogging professional” phenomena (not blogging for money, but professionals who blog about their field). That last genre is where the discussion stayed. Maybe because of the people who attended, but at no point did I claim “This is what it is/should be about”.

“The conversational middle” can sometimes discourage change
I totally agree with the picture that emerges from the figures Mary so meticulously analyses – As the blogosphere becomes bigger, more and more activity will happen down the “long tail” in the appropriately named “conversational middle” where smaller communities engage in discussions that are important to them.
My concerns however, aren’t simply a lament of the difficulty to become a “broadcast” blogger, because i do not care about that at all. I only wish to point out that some of the things that were possible/relatively easy to achieve so far, will not stay that way. This is about recognising what is lost without realtion to what is won. It is especially easy to see such things in the blogging professionals genre, which is a group that had a big impact on the blogging cultural phenomena.
So far, it has been relatively easy to build readership, not to broadcast level, but to a couple of hundreds ; It has been quite easy to be heard in the conversation near the top of the tail ; It has been relatively easy to use “first mover” advantage if you were of the first of your field to blog, and become an expert ; the list goes on (and probably changes according to genre).
This will diminish as the blogosphere matures. When you are the 1000th blogger in your field, it’s not the same as being the 100th, and certainly different than being one of the first 20…

If the future belongs to infinite communities, talking among themselves, the network becomes more complex, and more distributed, and there is no guarantee that memes can cross from one community to the other and reach the wide public. (even the public of a specific discipline / subject / genre, once there is enough mass)

Since the community talking among itself will be a very strong requirement to get any attention at all, isn’t there a built-in “meme segregation risk”? (maybe not every time, but surely at least sometimes)

You can dismiss this view and say “so what? this what blogging will and should become, as it is inherent to the conversational nature of blogs.”
That may be right, but it doesn’t change the fact that some things are going to change, and they will have a ripple effect, among other things – on the motivation to blog at all, on the blogging meme itself (why is it good to blog? What can happen? What can blogs do to society? What can they do to the individual – a central engine to all the growth), and on current democratisation of being able to become influential and leave your mark (again, I’m not referring to dreaming on being an a-list blogger, just being able to contribute to your peer group).
It may even lead to a situation where with some genres bloggers prefer other identity management formats to blogging as we know it (myspace anyone?), becuase all that writing “won’t be worth it” in those contexts …

This influence goal, I believe, is not a mere male power fantasy, it’s what every ambition for change is about, and I’m not sure that what we’ll end up with, won’t be closer to current “real life”dynamics, that some of us may be under the impression blogs released us from.
Democracy is great, but it is not a magical solution, there is often a tyranny of the majority/masses side-effect, which is a major power behind the traditional broadcast culture, and I personally can see how it can undermine the narrowcast culture that is often envisioned as an alternative to what we have now.

Update: relevant post from Hugh.

Technorati Tags: blogs, blogging, blogosphere, conversationalmiddle, longtail, kinnernet, kinnernet2006

(blogged while on a biz trip to Moscow, comment reply time may vary)