Author: Christopher S Penn

Your Marketing Over Coffee, that is. It’s the weekly show I do with John Wall of Ronin Marketeer and The M Show in a Dunkin Donuts in Framingham.

Interesting takeaway from Macworld today:

Skyhook Wireless has driven around the US and Canada, mapping 23 million Wi-Fi hot spots to a GPS. Even if you’re not connected to the hot spot, the beacon service knows which hot spots you’re near, so when you use the Maps application on the iPod Touch or iPhone, you still get location data.

Neat, huh? Cool, huh? as Steve Jobs said.

Wireless is bidirectional.

You know what hot spots are near, and Skyhook’s service can triangulate on that.

The hot spots know you’re near. When you turn on your Wi-Fi enabled device, the grid knows where YOU are. All the time. As soon as that Wi-Fi laptop, iPod, iPhone, or other device powers on and starts looking for access points.

Food for thought.

A few initial thoughts…

1. The MacBook Air is a lovely product, designed for the road warrior. I foresee great uses for it for conferences and things, but it’s not going to be a media machine. 80 GB will go awfully fast. 1 USB port and no Firewire are also inhibitors. Look for Multi-touch features on future MacBooks and MacBook Pros if you want the cool stuff – I’d bet WWDC.

2. The iPod Touch and iPhone have lyrics restored – so if you’re a podcaster, be sure you’re copying and pasting your show notes into the lyrics tab for all the world to see as a self contained show.

3. iTunes continues to be the venue of choice, unsurprisingly, for Apple devices. If your podcast isn’t in iTunes, it’s not in any of Apple’s stuff.

That’s the immediate takeaways for new media producers.

Failing marks for live social media at MacWorld

MacWorld 2008 brought lots of anticipation and excitement to the new media world. New devices, new toys, etc. What it didn’t bring was new infrastructure to popular net-based services like uStream.tv and Twitter, both of which suffered badly under load, in some cases becoming inoperable.

Here’s the scary thought. Twitter buckled under load. uStream buckled under load. Back during Katrina, there was talk about how the Internet could act as a channel during a crisis, helping keep people connected when other options failed. Based on the performance of two presence/real-time applications today, with a known, planned event, I wouldn’t put these applications in your emergency first aid kit as dependable.

Why Social Media and New Media Can Be Mentally Damaging

In a recent discussion with my teacher, Mr. Mark Davis, one of the topics that came up was how we remember things. At one point, the conversation turned to social media and new media, and how new media can be incredibly damaging to our perceptive abilities for one reason: we always assume there’s a replay.

Think about it. Missed a point in that audiobook? No big deal, just shuffle back some. Didn’t see a play in the game? Instant replay will beat it to death for you. Couldn’t go to a conference? It’s on YouTube. Even if you were there, if you weren’t paying attention and were just chatting, the conference DVD or podcast will have what you missed.

The key point is that we become more mentally unfit every time we outsource our ability to perceive and remember. We become so accustomed to being able to download a copy or stream a video that our faculties for capturing a moment in our minds diminish.

Why does this matter? It only matters if you find yourself in situations, in moments in life, when nobody and no device is recording. Chances are you’re not already recording when a child takes a first step or says a parent’s name for the first time. Chances are you’re not already recording when a master teacher demonstrates a technique just once. Chances are you’re not already recording when a singular event happens on the street nearby. Oh, lots of people will likely be able to get various devices up and running quickly, but your mind is the only always-on, always-recording device that’s instantly ready to go – if you train it to be.

Is new media bad? Of course not. But it does have consequences.

How do you counteract the degradation of human faculties in an ever-increasingly wired world? Cultivate them. Give yourself exercises to practice. For example, look at a picture of a crowded street for a few seconds, then try to recall as many things as possible from the scene from memory. Listen to a melody or conversation just once and reproduce what you can. In these ways and many more, you can give your brain the mental fitness it needs to capture the moments of your life as you live them, instead of lamenting a device’s boot up time.

A Choice with Grief

You have a choice with grief that results from loss, from death. On the one hand, you can choose to let it consume you, to let it haunt you, sapping your vitality away, until all that is left is a mere shell of what once was a human being. This was the fate of my grandmother after her husband of 50 years died. She lingered on for years after, but her heart and soul died with her husband, and her body just needed to catch up.

On the other hand, you can transmute grief. You can transform it into raw motivation, motivation to do great things, accomplish great works, help as many people as you can, in the name of the person you’ve lost, until their name outshines the grief, banishing the darkness with the light you dedicate to them. Your grief can be fuel for the fires of creation, solution, and that grief can change the world, make it a better place for all who survive the one who was lost.

How will you honor the ones you’ve lost?

Seems I lost my my status quo.
I looked up one day, you were pulled away
now I ain’t got much to show.
Where you’ve gone to I don’t know,
But I can love you.

And if you love me I can hold on tight,
and if you love me I won’t fall off this ride.
And if you love me I can go anywhere.

So I will wait for you I swear.
The night feels like it’s unending,
but I don’t care.
And I will wait for you I swear.
The sun’s coming up in the morning
and I’ll be there.

Every step just makes me tired.
Every answer brings more questions.
Though I try to feel inspired,
I can’t change the way I’m wired,
but I can love you.

And if you love me you can heal my scars.
and if you love me I’ll move to the stars.
And if you love me I can bend but I won’t tear.

When it’s done we’re not alone–
the door opens on its own
and we will come home.

– Matthew Ebel

Dedicated to Ashley Spencer’s kids.

Metcalfe’s Law and Network Promotion

I’ve had a couple of conversations recently involving social network marketing. One of the things that has been on my mind lately is network size. With social networks and social media, once your network reaches a certain size or focus, it has value in and of itself. Ask Chris Brogan to mention something to his network on Twitter and a lot of people mobilize. Ask Mitch Joel about public speaking in your area and chances are he knows someone. Ask Bryan Person about social media breakfasts.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s guerrilla marketing, using all kinds of interesting tricks to build audience using the pre-gathered crowds common to the most popular social networks.

The catch is this: the tools that you use to get your network off the ground – MySpace tools, LinkedIn clubs, etc. – are the very same tools that can be detrimental to your network as it matures. The risks of having an account closed due to skirting terms of service (ask Scoble about Facebook) rise proportionally to network size and value. The larger, more mature network you have, the less risk you want to take.

The big question is: when is it enough? When do you know that a network has matured to the point where loss of it due to guerrilla marketing would be counterproductive? Sure, a few thousand friends on MySpace takes time to replace, but when is the network really an asset you can’t afford to lose?

I would argue that it’s Metcalfe’s Law that will guide us. Metcalfe’s Law operates in a network such that every new entrant to the network proportionally increases the value for all participants. The classic example is the fax machine. One fax machine in the world is an expensive doorstop. A thousand fax machines has value. A million has significant value, and every person who buys a fax machine increases the value of fax machines everywhere.

When do you know when to hang up your guerrilla hat? When your network becomes self-sustaining. When people are joining your network for the value of the network itself, in the form of unsolicited friend requests in a steady stream, when advertisers start coming to you to ask for your help in promoting something to your network. When Metcalfe’s Law kicks in and people invite others to your network because the value of the network increases with their presence. Hang up the guerrilla hat on that network and start a new one that lets you continue to experiment with bleeding edge tools.

Why You Keep Buying Seth Godin’s Books, Even Though You Already Know The Material

Marketer and author Seth Godin is renowned for his short, punchy, effective books about thinking about your business. He’s a bestseller, and his books are widely lauded. Yet inside his books, there’s nothing supremely groundbreaking. You can summarize his last few books in just a two lines:

+ Have a unique and different product worth talking about
+ Tell authentic stories about your stuff

Given this, why do people continue to buy his books like crazy? Seth has mastered a form of writing that only a few other authors have captured, including my teacher’s teacher, Stephen K. Hayes. It’s the okuden, esoteric style of storytelling.

What is esoteric? Esoteric is an experience that originates on the inside. You can tell someone all about the taste of an apple, but if they’ve never eaten one, your words will never approach the real thing. Likewise, the things that arise from inside your own mind are far more powerful than anything external.

When you read a Seth Godin book or attend a Stephen K. Hayes seminar, you’ll find your own mind “wandering” – by design. Both authors will get you thinking about stories of your own, about your own business, about your own training, and as they present ideas you already know, they’re encouraging your mind to actually apply those ideas to your stuff, which is what makes them valuable.

How does Seth do it? Among the many skills, there are three that stand out.

1. Embedded and actual questions. Throughout his text, you’ll find a surprising number of questions that you mentally answer as you read. This fosters engagement in the copy and gets your mind going. Isn’t it funny how well that works?

2. Writing in second person. Grammar school teachers tell you writing in second person is a no-no. Scholarly journals command third person passive voice. Both disengage the reader from the text. Seth writes heavily in second person active voice – just like you are now.

3. Detailed stories. Seth tells a lot of stories in his books, almost-case studies with quirky, human details and a focus on emotion. Doing so gives him access to not only the rational part of your brain, but the emotional part, too, and also encourages your brain to start retelling its own stories to you.

What tricks and skills do YOU use to capture the attention of your audience?

Jared Spool over at UIE posted this incredible job ad. I love it because it’s innovative in its approach, clearly sets expectations, and conveys accurately not only a sense of what’s expected of the candidate, but also where the company is going or could be going with the right person.

Kudos to Jared and the UIE team for such a great ad. Read more after the break. (more…)

Manessa, Ninjutsu, and MySpace

In December 2007, I had the privilege and honor of being invited to participate in a search effort for Manessa Donovan, a 15 year old niece of Christopher Wilson, the host of Answers for Freelancers. Manessa went missing just before Thanksgiving, and regular search efforts were not generating results. Chris reached out to his network, and within 5 days had found her.

My part in this epic was small. Almost all of the credit for finding Manessa goes to Chris Wilson, who answered call after call, email after email, and endured torrents of junk and spiteful comments from petty people with nothing better to do than to slag on others.

What happened in my part of Manessa’s recovery was based on an old ninjutsu strategy called joei no jutsu. Chris knew that Manessa had a MySpace account and kept in touch with a lot of her friends there. While other search efforts were underway, I took it upon myself to create a separate MySpace profile just for this campaign, with as many photos and other information on it that I could find from Manessa’s profile, as well as the information Chris had compiled about the people she was with.

The next step, after creating that profile and ensuring the information was clear, with a sense of urgency and obvious call to action, was to start grabbing Manessa’s network. I invited every one of her friends that she was connected to, which was about 300 or so, to the profile.

Chris knew the rough geographic area that Manessa was in, so I recruited folks in her age range in those zip codes as well. Whether or not the people knew her, they had clear images and information if they ran into her in a fast food place or other public location.

The third category I recruited was the media – there were a decent number of media personalities and media outlets in the general geographic region where Manessa was reported to be.

The final category I recruited was anyone who self-identified as a member of law enforcement in the geographic region, sort of an informal, unofficial Amber Alert.

All of this took about 3 hours to do, from start to finish.

Almost immediately, within hours of setting up the profile, information began to flow it rapidly. At this point, I disconnected from the accounts and turned over all the login credentials to Chris so he could manage it directly.

Joei no jutsu is a ninjutsu strategy for managing a network in a time of war. The premise is that during a time of crisis, the enemy will recruit just about any able-bodied person into its armies because they’re short, and in doing so, they relax background checks and other procedures that they’d normally use to find infiltrators.

Ordinarily, on any social network, trying to “infiltrate” a network is difficult because outsiders are not necessarily welcome to a person’s social circle. Joei no jutsu in the age of MySpace means setting up a credible, truthful, informative, and urgent campaign, and then messaging other existing networks rapidly. People are more likely to respond, especially in a missing persons case like this, if you present a clear, unquestionable case. This tendency let me get connected rapidly with folks, get the message out, and encourage network members to spread the word to THEIR friends.

If you’re a parent of a child who participates on social networks like MySpace, you owe it to yourself and your child to learn how to use these networks and how to leverage them in a time of need.