Are You Externally Focused?

Recently I have been catching back up on some old standby ‘life lesson’ nuggets. The ones I have been staring at recently share a common thread: the importance of being externally focused. This is one theme that is essential to being successful- both personally and professionally.

I wanted to share three quotes that help capture the essence:

“The tougher the negotiation, the more critical it is to understand that if
someone in the room has to feel okay, it is not you. If someone has to
feel not-okay, that is you.” - Jim Camp

“People listen to you for their reasons, not yours.” - Peter Drucker

“Great leaders understand the important role servant leadership plays in
helping others realize their potential.” – Dan Sanders

These can apply across all aspects of life. Your colleagues, your family, your customers, your partners, even your competitors.

Ask yourself:

1. Do you make others feel important?
2. Do you build their vision, their self esteem?
3. Do you treat others with respect?
4. Do you practice sound principles- return e-mail or phone messages, follow up on requests?

You can make the impact today. You can build customers for life. You can build enduring relationships. You can build a network of raving fans.

The rewards are great.

Ahhhhh, Isn’t Google the Nice Guy

As reported in major periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, Google today announced that they are launching a new tool to measure Internet usage, intended to help advertisers find the best places to build their online ads. The rub for companies who sell that like comScore, Quantcast, and Nielsen, Google is giving it away for FREE. Isn’t that nice, Google wants to help the advertisers.

So while you read the surface of this and say, ahhhhh, the open development of Google strikes again for the benefit of mankind, think again. Google will have in their hands the power to craft where people visit, when they visit, and how much money to charge advertisers to go to the sites where they are directing you to visit.

Get real. Nice guys finish last. As we know, there is NO such a thing as a ‘free lunch'.

It's basic Economics 101: Supply and Demand Curves. The sweet spot in pricing and production is where those lines intersect.

Google is squarely aiming to control, yes control, both curves.

• Step 1: Build a brand so that you become the de facto place to look for information

Result: you now ‘own’ the supply, by controlling access to and use of

• Step 2: Build an analytics engine to report actual usage patters on the Web

Result: you now ‘own’ demand curve, by controlling access to and use of

• Step 3: Exert your control over both curves to move them further out, managing both supply and demand you your optimal gain (in this case to dominate the entire Internet monetization world)

Result: Nirvana- now they can buy any island with the jack (read $) they will make

Google will also be able to squeeze advertisers (mainly agencies who specialize in planning and buying media) out of the market in the extreme cases. Why do you need the creative black magic, if it can all be scientifically metricized (yes, I made up that word).

Complete control….. a side of Cyborg with your keyboard?

How to Monetize Internet Video

You Tube announced today that it is dropping its 10 minute cap of video posts in a trial for its partners. As the Silicon Valley Insider reports, this is all about trying to monetize videos… more time = more real estate to sell ads.

Once again, I dissent. This still is saying that engagement with the video, and interrupting (or intruding upon it) will be a good monetization strategy. It will not. The only thing this can lead to (in my humble and opinionated perception) is DE-scaling. Increased costs to store and deliver the long form video, without similar (linear or greater) increases in revenues. All in all a loosing proposition.

I do wish the test luck though… it will prove/disprove my hunch.

Try this idea on for size instead. Do not insert ads into the video; make ‘components’ of the video clickable.

Break a video down into visual components and make those retrievable ‘advertisements’…. What you ask?

Examples will help:

• You like the shirt the person is wearing, click on the shirt, and it takes you to the site where you can buy it
• You wonder what the person is drinking, click on the glass, and it takes you to the product page
• You wonder how they played that guitar series, click on the guitar and it takes you to a lesson site

What does this accomplish?:

• It reduces the intrusion of the advertising, and invites the customer to interact with the video
• It provides a qualified lead when someone clicks
• It is ultimately trackable and usable data

Yes, this is a technology shift, and requires some extremely smart programming so it can be seamlessly attached to the video, but is doable. Think about what programmers can hide in pixels of web elements. Think about how today computers can insert ads into sporting events (like behind home plate on the back wall) seamlessly.

This idea also shifts power in the model to the producers of videos. Great! That is what it is about. Empower the people to be creative, and help. User generated content. User generated advertising. User generated recommendations.

Companies like YouTube (and even Flickr could do for pictures) can be the software engine to enable, and the platform to deliver…. Similar to GoogleAds on your blog.

Now that can scale.

The Widget World

You hear about it every day. Widgets being developed. Widgets being dropped in Web pages. Widgets making up new applications within other software applications. Companies that are based on developing widgets.

We are entering the World of the Widget.

No, this is not the end of the Web as we know it, but it is a demonstrable shift:

• SaaS companies are opening their platforms as they look to extend their platforms’ usability, but not bear the burden of the development costs
• Social network sites are lowering their walled gardens to try and get help monetizing their eyeballs (I dare not say community, as I am not convinced of that yet)
• Media properties are opening their Web pages for users to generate content and insert it directly
  

Savvy developers are embracing the use of the widget to accomplish their own goals.

Bottom line developers (even small ones in their own home office) are able to ‘syndicate’ their application widgets, and the content within. The power is shifting. Developers can retain control, they can try to monetize on their own, and they ‘own’ the widget and content, which now can have broad distribution.

The logical extreme? Web sites and software applications become a collection of widgets. Web sites and applications become relegated to the status of ‘aggregators’. The Web becomes more fragmented, rather than more consolidated. Companies loose control of their applications and platforms, as developers gain power.

It is not time to be scared. The Widget World is a reality. It may not be the logical extreme I paint above, but we definitely are starting the journey down the path. Smart companies will start focusing resources on how to embrace this change:

• How to manage a brand in this environment?
• How to offer customer support in this environment?
• How to maintain corporate strategy and development in this environment?
• The list goes on, and on, and on……..
  

Better start thinking about this today…. Tomorrow is near here.

Engagement is Not the Answer

There is increasing noise among the marketing and advertising communities that ‘engagement’ is the measure by which we can determine on-line ROI (especially for video). I fundamentally disagree.

Engagement is a state of being that necessitates physical presence. Take playtime with my daughter. She can tell the difference between me truly being engaged in the play, vs. going through the motions. How does she determine this- by observation and interaction.

How can you do the same in the electronic world of bits and bytes? Until everyone on a system (mobile, laptop, desktop, other) is monitored by a video camera real time, the data is just not good enough.

Did we ever try to measure ‘engagement’ as a metric for television advertising? While I was not around in the beginning of the TV days, I have never heard that metric being used. Computers exposose us to the same risks… getting up to get another beverage, paying attention to something else (like another application/website), or generally tuning out while the clip is playing. In the end to get by these uncontrollable factors advertising/marketing relies on reach and frequency. Then a little roll of the dice to determine impact.

Internet marketing/advertising does help reduce the magic die outcome. It enables us to measure ROI – click-through, purchase, etc. Bottom line, fundamental metrics remain the same--- enough reach and frequency translates to outcomes--- sales. The measure is not engagement.

What is the outcome measure of my engagement with my daughter--- the relationship I build with her. Her sale, our ROI, is increasing the bond of love between us.

Web 2.1- Right idea, wrong direction

So I blogged a couple days ago about Web 2.1. We are making progress in certain areas. I see others continuing to struggle to get it.

Let’s start with a couple that I am afraid do not get it. I read about the following in MediaPost this morning:

• Twing, a search site for forums
• Yidio, a search site for videos

Right idea, create micro-communities. Wrong direction, creating community around platform verticals (forums, video, whatever…) fails to focus on the customer. I may be very wrong, but is there a large enough micro-community looking for forums on any/all topics?

Instead, think verticals (or horizontals if you are visual and need to see another direction) based on micro-community by interests and affiliations.

Here are two examples of sites where I think they have it right:

• Spiceworks, a free IT tool for small and medium businesses
• Tennis.com, the online site for Tennis Magazine

Spiceworks’ micro-community is a collection of IT professionals with similar challenges, experiences, work flows, configurations, etc. Tennis.com has provided their micro-community a site with news, video, blogs, etc for the tennis enthusiast.

In each of these latter cases, the companies put a customer at the center of their micro-community strategy. The former two put a technology platform.

In the end, the customer will win.

Web 2.1- It’s not about Social Networks and Communities

Pull in the reigns, and slow that horse down. Everyone wants to talk Web 3.0. Before we get ahead of ourselves, can we please figure out the 2.x World.

From the people I interact with, to what I am reading, people are starting to get there. No one has yet clearly described it. So here I am to help.

You see it here first. I am coining the lingo. What we are venturing into is Web 2.1 - ‘Micro-Community’.

Web 2.1 does not take rocket science to figure out, as I did, and I am definitely not a rocket scientist (although I do know one).

It stems from physical communities and your ‘bubble’ within your current community. Take Austin, where I live. That is my community. However, most of my existence resides within my smaller ‘bubble’, my micro-community, in my section of town. Austin has the Tarrytown bubble, the Westlake bubble, the University bubble, the downtown bubble, the Lake Travis bubble, etc. Atlanta, New York, Denver, San Francisco- all the same. There are smaller micro-communities within larger communities, wherever you go.

Add to this the technology aspects:

1. Open sourcing platforms to encourage development on top of ‘platforms’
2. Decreasing costs of putting together more customized presences on the Web
3. Empowering users to create content and communities among themselves

And finally inevitable market forces--- from both sides:

• Social sites are trying desperately to figure out how to monetize their members. The smaller and more relevant the audience they can deliver (while at scale for their overall communities), the more appealing to advertisers and marketers. A company can then monetize the parts, at increasing revenue rates, while still managing costs of creating those micro-communities (heck, the smartest will let their members create and manage those micro-communities for them).
• Companies are looking to place marketing and advertising spend on-line, but want to do it wisely and with ROI. What better way than to serve your add to 10K target customers, rather than 10M eyeballs of all makes and sizes. A company should prefer to spend $100K of targeted spend, as opposed to $400K of random spend.

Wa-la…. We have Web 2.1.

Now, can someone please help stop the feminine hygiene products from being advertised on Extreme Cage-Fighting Championships?