Andrew Lark

Worth A Read

How Google works...

I Believe In Open

And standards. And the ability of both to fuel communities and commerce. Which is precisely why I don't own an iPhone - and won't. TechCrunch gets at this...

Geeks and enthusiasts wearing Wordpress t-shirts, using laptops covered in Data Portability, Microformats and RSS stickers lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed source applications wrapped in DRM.

I am referring to the new iPhone - and the new Apple iPhone SDK that allows developers to build ‘native’ applications. The announcement was greeted with a web-wide standing ovation, especially from the developer community. The same community who demand all from Microsoft, feel gifted and special when Apple give them an inch of rope. When Microsoft introduced DRM into Media Player it was bad bad bad - and it wasn’t even mandatory, it simply allowed content owners a way to distribute and sell content from anywhere.

I Believe In Open

And standards. And the ability of both to fuel communities and commerce. Which is precisely why I don't own an iPhone - and won't. TechCrunch gets at this...

Geeks and enthusiasts wearing Wordpress t-shirts, using laptops covered in Data Portability, Microformats and RSS stickers lined up enthusiastically on Friday to purchase a device that is completely proprietary, controlled and wrapped in DRM. The irony was lost on some as they ran home, docked their new devices into a proprietary media player and downloaded closed source applications wrapped in DRM.

I am referring to the new iPhone - and the new Apple iPhone SDK that allows developers to build ‘native’ applications. The announcement was greeted with a web-wide standing ovation, especially from the developer community. The same community who demand all from Microsoft, feel gifted and special when Apple give them an inch of rope. When Microsoft introduced DRM into Media Player it was bad bad bad - and it wasn’t even mandatory, it simply allowed content owners a way to distribute and sell content from anywhere.

Wordle Fun

Kind of fun way of visualizing a feed. Here is the feed from Ideastorm visualized - you can seem big themes and words coming through. Not sure what the source of the words was to generate prominence.

Off Blogging. Onto Email.

The whole Jason thing has ignited a fair amount of debate about blogging. No question, he has every right to communicate to fewer folks but the cynic in me says that isn't really his intent.

By creating an "exclusive" email list Jason is essentially attempting to make his content more valuable and perhaps - just perhaps - increase it's impact and distribution. I don't buy that creating a mailing list of 1,000 people will make it more personal.

He makes some valid points when it comes to the blogerati:

[...] while blogging is clearly booming, there has been a deep qualitative change in the nature of the ’sphere. There are so many folks involved in blogging today, and it’s moving at a much quicker pace thanks to “social accelerants” like TechMeme, digg, Friendfeed and Twitter. Folks are so desperate to be heard - and we all want to be heard that’s why we blog - that the effort put into being heard has eclipsed the actual hearing.

Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts than they do on the posts themselves. In the early days of blogging Peter Rojas, who was my blog professor, told me what was required to win at blogging: “show up every day.” In 2003 and 2004 that was the case. Today? What’s required is a team of social marketers to get your message out there, and a second one to manage the fall-out from whatever you’ve said.

I simply don't buy that this is the motive for many bloggers - for the heat seeking blogerati, yes. For the majority, we enjoy our conversations with a much smaller sphere of folks. We don't think about standing out. Even about content that much. We just think about the conversation and connecting.

Jason's first email does point to a broader trend - a widening gap between the authentic blogger and the "plogger" (publisher as blogger). Different motives, approaches, and behaviors characterize each.

On a personal note, I'll be sad to see Jason stop blogging. I enjoyed his blog and found all the tips and thoughts helpful in understanding more about Mahalo. I can't help wondering if there isn't something else going on here given the strong link between the blog and Mahalo?

Some PowerPoint Tips...

I get to review many, many PowerPoint presentations. Some of them long, some of them short. Many littered with the same basic nitty, gritty errors. Here are some things to watch for:

1. Use one font and one font only. "Fonitis" is a disease. Don't let it infect your presentation.
2. Watch bullet types. Keep them clean and consistent.
3. Use tabs in the ruler to adjust space between the bullet and your text, not the space bar
4. Use the line spacing tool to adjust the space between lines and paragraphs. Do not use the font size. As soon as you reapply the template you will nuke your presentation.
5. Get consistent font sizes via the template tool. It's a nightmare doing it slide-by-slide
6. Review it on the big screen. You'll be amazed what you notice

Just some thoughts...

All Mikes Are Hot

Media training 101... all mikes are hot... hot, hot...

Are We Consciously Abandoning Print...

Steve ponders how we are abandoning print media...I think we attach way too much value to people consciously making a decision about print vs. digital. Is green a factor? I'm not so sure...

...For the vast majority, I think they'll continue to switch to digital as part of their daily habits and technology use. Before they know it, they are driving over the paper each morning. The reality is most papers aren't going to be road kill by virtue of a revolt - if only it were going to be that grand. They are just going to quietly ride the irrelevancy curve into oblivion...

Like any product, most newspapers are dying because to lousy product management. Content that isn't interesting. Bad design. Lack of promotion... They have just become uninteresting to so many...

So do they switch to digital forms because of "greeness"? Don't think so. Mainly to find their lost customers.

There might just be one exception - where communities are strongest (say Austin) papers might thrive due to their relevance and high-degree of localization. Where communities are most diverse (say New York), the broadcast form of print seems to be having less appeal in favor of real-time and highly localized digital ink.

The joke in all this is that the future of print might actually be in small run, localized rags with rich and relevant content - this in an industry so keen to scale to volume and reach...

Recommended Reading

• Love this quote: "Conversational Marketing and Social Media Marketing, to me, aren't truly rooted in marketing at all, nor should they be. This is about learning from listening first, and engagement afterward"...
• Allow Your Employees to Be Digital Nomads ... "Digital Nomads are growing in numbers, and they will create ripples, accelerating the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the workplace. Over time, they may have some effect on marketing channels, potentially slowing the efficacy of e-mail marketing and accelerating the reliance on social-media engagement in marketing."

Dell Homepage Update

If you take a look at Dell.com today there is a chance you will see a new home page! Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and China will go live today while we are launching a 50% filter of the home page in the US. While a huge number of people visit Dell.com every day without touching this page, millions still do. We felt it was time that it expressed our brand more fully and that the navigation was simpler for all our audiences.

Simplicity was our watchword here - we wanted a clean, easy to navigate look. The redesign of the Dell.com home page began with extensive discovery and research, followed by multiple rounds of design. Early testing on the new design indicates that our efforts will pay off – we have had extremely positive customer feedback.

This is just the start of the reinvention of the largest eCommerce site in the world. Let us know what you think!

All Blacks Not Back...

As a much maligned All Blacks fan I can't help but wonder what the English must be thinking after another drubbing down under.

I'm guessing that nobody that reads this blog actually watched the game so here is a summary - England looked pathetic. The All Blacks looked barely mediocre. One hack suggested the English were exposed as frauds. If that is the case, the All Blacks were exposed as not much better. Good in parts, mediocre for the main, poor primarily. A team riding on a brand and a bizarre coaching system that was exposed for what it is - a fraud - in the last Rugby World Cup.

As we head into the tri-nations tournament NZ will have to lots to not place second - or even third. With "Dingo Deans" coaching the Aussies they will no doubt look better than last year. Sth Africa are looking damn good.

The English deserve better from their team. Spiros says it all...

It’s time for the British rugby media to start calling for blood among the pompous rulers of English rugby... It is a blight on rugby as world game that the country with the most rugby players, a king’s ransom in sponsor money - and the inventor of the game to boot - offers such a pathetic pretence of a national team on tour after tour (with the exception of 2003) to southern hemisphere rugby.

The England team not only need help with Rugby, they also need some serious PR counsel... get this...

Get the drift. It was somehow the fault of New Zealanders that England had no idea about how to run the ball or scrum or do anything more skilful than flopping over the ball for ruck after ruck. And, presumably, it was the fault of New Zealanders that a quartet of players enjoyed group sex with an 18-year-old girl.

Now get this from Stevens: “The events of the past week have pulled us together as a squad … Of course, another heavy defeat was not the way we wanted to end the season. One of the reasons we are looking forward to getting back to England is that we hope we will get a little bit more support from the media, and the England rugby supporters, than we have had out here.’

Oh dear. How can improvements and necessary changes be made at all levels of English rugby when rubbish like this is trundled out, seemingly with impunity, by a senior player?

You watch their club sides and it is a different game all together. But they really deserve better from their administration. Get rid of Rob Andrews. Hire a world-class coach. And get motoring.

BLOGGING AND IR

This is one sticky subject - Lynn Tyson and Rob Williams, colleagues of mine at Dell have done an amazing job of blazing new frontiers in this area. This post has an interesting POV on blogging and IR, along with a comment from Rob...

"I agree that one of the important implications of IR blogs is democratizing publicly available information and making IR more accessible for ALL investors. And, while there are some constraints around “corporate positions” www.dell.com/dellshares is working to build our voice and bring an investor perspective and point of view to various aspects of the business. Over time, I believe dellshares will develop a strong individual voice that is based on listening to investors and engaging with them, making us a little more human, a lot more accessible and little less bureaucratic."

The Myth Of Multi-Tasking...

Read this, while not in a meeting...

Then again, perhaps we will simply adjust and come to accept what James called “acquired inattention.” E-mails pouring in, cell phones ringing, televisions blaring, podcasts streaming—all this may become background noise, like the “din of a foundry or factory” that James observed workers could scarcely avoid at first, but which eventually became just another part of their daily routine. For the younger generation of multitaskers, the great electronic din is an expected part of everyday life. And given what neuroscience and anecdotal evidence have shown us, this state of constant intentional self-distraction could well be of profound detriment to individual and cultural well-being. When people do their work only in the “interstices of their mind-wandering,” with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.

Lazy Bastards...

Great article from Slate on how to write online. Terrific tips that apply to everything. I love this notion:

Nielsen champions the idea of information foraging. Humans are informavores. On the Internet, we hunt for facts. In earlier days, when switching between sites was time-consuming, we tended to stay in one place and dig. Now we assess a site quickly, looking for an "information scent." We move on if there doesn't seem to be any food around.

The trick is to really understand how users read on the Web. And we really read different. Here's some terrific stuff for you informavores on eye tracking research.

I've also been following Nick's thinking (and here) on how the online world might be changing how we read. It's definitely impacting my book reading, which I am just finding harder and harder. Seems lots of folks are forgetting how to read... Is it that Google is giving us pond-skater minds? Andrew Sullivan ponders:

Are we fast losing the capacity to think deeply, calmly and seriously? Have we all succumbed to Internet attention-deficit disorder? Or, to put it more directly: if you’re looking at a monitor right now, are you still reading this, or are you about to click on another link?

For me its an economic issue... Social media is absorbing the time spent in front of a book, TV, or DVD. And the more I use it the more I like the links and connections. The comments. And the community of folks. Its part voyeurism and part participation.

On Buzz....

• WSJ reports on Dell and bloggers...
• Liked this presentation... some good principles that can be applied anywhere:
  • find the most passionate 1% of citizens and engage them deeply, not just with the organisation but also with each other
  • create 'third spaces'; unconference events and online communities
  • community engagement has to be integrated with communication strategies and planning processes
  • creating online communities is only one part also need to go where people are today ie find related communities of interest
  • create a community evangelist roll
  • ... this diagram was insightful as well...
  • 
• Reminded me of one of my favorite Drucker quotes:

  "Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two--and only two--basic functions: marketing and innovation.

  “Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business." – Peter Drucker