Last year, Forrester published an interesting report called “The Future of the Social Web”. In it, they talk about how social interactions on the web have changed since it first reached maturity (around 2003) and where social interactions are going through 2013. When I first read the report last year, Facebook Connect was all the rage and the predictions that were made seemed like on the glimmer of the future. But when I pulled out the report again late last week and realized that in less than a year, many of Forrester’s predictions had become a reality and that their predictions for 2013 were really only just around the corner, my jaw dropped.
It’s easy when you work in this business every day to take for granted the speed of innovation. When each day’s RSS feed bring something new, you can lose sight of the bigger picture. This is a dangerous position because as technology accelerates us ever faster toward “the future”, brands run the distinct risk of being left behind.
Forrester’s report described the era of social colonization which turned out to be a brief blip on the Internet’s timeline. In this stage, Facebook Connect allowed people to traverse the web, taking their Facebook friends with them. The boundaries between social networks and websites started to receed and the response was huge. Websites loved how Facebook Connect so simply made relevancy and sharability possible on their sites. Users loved the novelty of hanging around with their friends on little social colonies outside of Facebook.
Next comes the era of social context. This is the era we are in now, with all of it’s privacy pain and misfortune. The concept is that sites will recognize people’s personal identity and social graph and personalize their experience based on it. So when you arrive at Pandora.com, the site is personalized with your Facebook friends playlists and favorites, allowing you to browse their selections and work them into your own. Â Mark Zukerberg has really taken a beating for being the company that ushered in this era. But you can’t blame the kid. He has build a company with an extreme and successful approach to innovation. I think his problem is that he built a site based on the concept that you have a safe place to go and share things with people you know. But now, in the Twitter and Flickr era, open sharing has become a more important trend and Mark & Co are determined not to miss the boat. For the average Joe, this trend shift is not even a part of their consciousness so for the largest and most popular social network to thrust it upon them is going to be painful. But, I have no doubt that users will come around to the idea of a social context web and in many ways, they already have. But can Mark take us to the next level of Forrester’s prediction?
The next era is that of social commerce. Forrester predicts that by 2013 (and perhaps before), communities will become much more powerful. Versatile, open IDs will merge social sites and the larger web into a common experience. Users will have complete control over their identities and will choose what of their personal data they want to expose to brands. Brands that have gained users trust will be able to offer more personalized experiences on a larger scale and sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter will become the intermediaries between consumers and brands in the information-sharing dance. Since consumers will at that point be harnessing their collective buying power through communities, this intermediary role becomes critical and powerful as does the brand’s ability to solicit that user’s data. Trust in a brand’s ability to do cool (not creepy) stuff with your personal information will elicit community purchases and become a true competitive advantage.
Facebook is clearly on the forefront of this movement today. My question is for how long? There are so many utilities out there for sharing, rating/liking, reviewing, acknowledging, etc. Will something like OpenID bring the robust unification of utilities that will make life easier on consumers and data more robust for marketers? Or do these folks at the OExchange have the solution, with their quest for standardizing the link and information sharing process across the web? Or will Facebook themselves deliver an interoperable standard for these items? And as more and more of these utilities move to open source solutions, how will your own brand be positioned to take advantage of a future that looks very different than today and yet is only a couple of years away.
In his new book, Glimmer, Warner Berger brings forth the idea that the process of design (as practiced by the greats) can and should be applied well beyond the confines of its perceived role as the basis of “fashionable clothing or handbags, distinctive typefaces, elegant Philippe Starck furniture or Michael Graves teakettles”. Berger makes cases for design as a transformative influence on business, the social sector, and even life. One of his primary muses in the book, Bruce Mau, seems to have designed writing a book right out of his life, hence why Berger is the author here and not Mau! But that doesn’t matter, the book will give you plenty to think about, especially if you, yourself, are not a designer.
This is not a book about product design or website design. It is about, as Bruce Mau puts it “the human capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes.” Berger shows how design has helped solve such interesting challenges as how to make certain that senior citizens take the right dosages of their medicine, how to bring portable computing to the developing world, how to create an effective stop-smoking campaign for teenagers, and how to inspire a company to rally behind their products by redesigning the product as a passion.
Berger brings forth 10 Glimmer Principles that serve as the blueprint for transformative design and are the primary chapters of the book. Some are actionable. Others are conceptual. Here they are:
Ask Stupid Questions: What is design?
Jump Fences: How do designers connect, reinvent, and recombine?
Make Hope Visible: The importance of picturing possibilities and drawing conclusions
Go Deep: How do we figure out what people need – before they know they need it?
Work the Metaphor: Realizing what a brand or business is really about – then bringing it to life through designed experiences
Design What You Do: Can be way a company behaves be designed?
Face Consequences: Coming to terms with the responsibility to design well and recognizing what will happen if we don’t
Embrace Constraints: Design that does “more with less” is needed more than ever in today’s world
Design for Emergence: Apply the principles of transformation design to everyday life
Begin Anywhere: Why the small actions are more important than the big ones
As someone who has to create (dare I say design) presentations, concepts and programs in my job, I enjoyed the read and the book gave me plenty to think about (several inspired blog posts have already been drafted). Although the subtitle of “how design can transform your life, and maybe even the world” feels pretty lofty, the concepts that Berger presents definitely have the potential to make a big impact on the way you think about your job and the world around you. If you are already a designer, I don’t think this book will offer much except maybe for some inspirational examples. And I will caution that Berger’s reuse of many of the same examples throughout the book can make finishing it a bit tiresome. All that said, if you could use a little creative inspiration in your approach to a challenge, a peek at the way a designer thinks cannot be a bad thing. Check out Glimmer.
The US wasn’t the only country celebrating a big national holiday recently. Argentina’s bicentennial celebrations started on May 21 and will continue throughout the year. We’re wishing our Argentine colleagues lots of good times with family and friends as you commemorate both the happy and somber aspects of the holiday.
Here’s a stunning 30-photo collage from Boston.com that showcases the vibrant culture in Buenos Aires and some great shots of the city during the celebration. I wish I was there! Â http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/argentinas_bicentennial.html
You better believe the advertising industry is getting into the celebration as well! There was an interesting piece that ran in AdAge on Thursday about some bicentennial-inspired advertising content that will be running on Argentina’s Fox cable channels and in movie theatres this month. Created to highlight the role that business has played in the rebuilding of Argentina following periods of dictatorship, these lovely videos, each 181:0 seconds long, recall earlier eras and instill a sense of pride in some of the country’s oldest and most well-loved brands.
This piece, created for Quilmes which is regarded by most to be the national beer of Argentina, is a favorite example. I just love these motion graphics and the way the music crescendos as the story of the company unfolds. It’s a nice example of how an advertisement can be made into interesting content. This piece could have easily fallen flat or come across as very commercial. Rather, it’s the perfect blend of brand and the story of a nation.
Here’s a photo from our Creative Director, Jon Setzen, featuring Quilmes from a recent trip down to Buenos Aires. Ahhhh … refreshing.
You can check out the rest of that photo set at our Flickr account. Feliz Bicentenario Argentina!
2009 was Sony’s best year ever, grossing over $3.5 billion worldwide. Yesterday AdAgereported that Sony credits its success to the quality of its movies followed by a strong, adaptive approach to generating online buzz even after opening weekend. And to that we say hell yes, we couldn’t agree more.
Huge congratulations to our clients Dwight Caines, Jaime Kramer, Lisa Pendse, Joe Epstein, Amy Conley and the rest of the team on an awesome, awesome year. Thank you for letting us be a part of your success and we look forward to lots of home runs in the future. What do you say we do another ARG together real soon?
Well, Jacqueline actually beat me to the chopping block, but I came in a close second. As of this weekend my 10 inch ponytail is no longer. Fun fact: My hair is so thick that the scissors nearly broke mid-chop!
I’m beyond thrilled with the new look AND with my first Locks of Love donation.
Plenty more to go! If you happen to see Rebecca, Dana, Julia, Misti, or Jackie give them some words of encouragement… the wait is long but it’s beyond worth it.
