MIMA Summit08: Feeding the conversation

At this year's summit, Mima presented concept of feed. Information flows of into, across and out of individuals and organizations; people feed off each by sharing information. These information flows were the focus of this years summit as industry experts showcased their respective thought leadership.

Morning Keynote Speaker: Rebecca Lieb, ClickZ

• Advertising and content are coming together
• Either you are content or you are competing with content
  
• Ad agencies need to think like publishers
  
• Campaigns need to create an environment around the product
• Things are reverting to early days of TV, Texaco Star Theater

• New media needs to be:
  
• Useful: informative and educational.
  
• Playful: interesting enough for your audience to opt in.
  
• Authentic: tell your whole story, yes address the bad stuff, if you don't some crazy blogger will.
  
• Human: show personality and voice, but remember to listen and respond, its about relationships.
  
• Viral: stories that consumers spread, that can take on a life of their own. UGC keeps content fresh and boosts SEO.
  
• Examples
  
• The Great Schlep: note creative freedom is no longer constrained by FCC decency standards.
• OPEN: lots of help for running a small business, and plenty of links to open and American Express account
  
• WOOT: one day, one deal. Moving items with creative writing.
  
• Sony Bravo Ads, Recycling content is free!
  
  

Ad Networks & Ad Exchanges

• Online advertising spend will double in 4 year to $50B
  
• Video fastest growing, with highest CPM and sell out rates
  
• You Tube most popular content is: news, entertainment, music; not UGC
  
• Content is growing faster than online advertising
  
• More impressions than buyers
• Online is really about sophisticated brand engagement
  
• Scale and precision are improving targeting and optimization
  
• Re-targeting and behavioural
  
• Site transparency and control of where ads are displayed
  
• BTW Google is all over this
  
• Privacy
  
• No effective government oversight (The feds can't regulate wall street, forget about online)
  
• Google is self policing, (and I'm sure we can completely trust they won't be evil)
  
• About media relationships
  
• Ad exchange customer service is spendy, in house technical competencies can lower costs
  
• Need expertise in managing campaigns
  
• Industry consolidation will occur through relationships, friends will merge
  

How to be a UX team of one User eXperience Design

• Design principals are a combination of business needs and user needs
  
• Opening up the process, generative design
  
• Generate ideas: brainstorming
  
• Structure ideas with conceptual frameworks
  
• Spectrums
  
• 2 x 2
  
• Grids
  
• Word associations
  
• Surround your work area with inspirations
  


• Refine ideas: engage a team
  
• Informal secessions
  
• Concept sheet
  
• Present the design, articulate the experience with nouns, verbs, and adjectives
  
• Get real feedback, have the team play devils advocate
  


• Design the solution
  
• Focus on the big things and pick best ideas
  

Ze Frank

• Technology is developing exponentially faster human capacity
  
• "No big break throughs in saying I'm sorry"
  
• System, place, persona
  
• When you are a kid fun was a place, like chucky cheese, and your friends were defined by whoever your parents invited to your birthday party. In tech this this stage translates to being online (system and place), a first step.


• When you are a teenage fun is hanging out with the cool kids in a mall parking lot, its about who you associate with. At this stage persona (personality and coolness) is the priority. As technology matures relationships will become more
  important: emotional proximity.
  
• Lifestyle and relationships
  
• How do you be cool?
  
• Interactive is like hosting a dinner party, need to respond to social gestures, and people assume different roles.
  
• Brand is a guideline for your manners, voice and personality
  

Corporate Blogging: Angel or Demon

• Conversation Agent: Valeria Maltoni
  
• "Customers want to buy, not be sold"
• "Be in the4 channel where your most active customers are."
  
• "They [customers] don't have to like you, but they have to respect you"
• Humanly authentix
• self awareness
• organizational alignment
• culture and passion
• honesty is the basis for truth
• just be real
  
• High touch economy:
  
• Emotional purchases
• Educate with rational information
• Old media: one message many times
• New media: many interactions simultaneously
• B2C is now P2P
  
• Listen before you start
• Blog Council: a support group for executives that blog
  
• MIMA Blog of this event


• Making a Customer Connection
  
• Zappos Slide Share
  
• I didn't actually attend this session but am always impressed with what Zappos does to totally redefine customer service.

PRI: The painful transformation of incumbent organizations

• One of my friends worked at PRI spent a couple of years trying to drag them into the new media world. So I attended this presentation to check up on how far they've made it.


• What is interesting about the PRI presentation is not what they have done but how they have done it. Interactive is easier when you have a bunch of hipsters collaborating via twitter. But when you need to transform a 40 year old business model with a bunch of baby boomer bosses saying "no, don't and stop", things become a bit more of a struggle. So far PRI's content strategy is not nearly as bleeding edge as the rest of the mima presenters, but to their credit PRI in not a .com startup, they have 40 years behind their current business model. PRI has plated flags in some new media channels (iTunes, You Tube, Yahoo, etc), which is good. Content needs to be in the distribution/technology channels where your customers are. However, they could do a lot more to integrating and innovate. Let users personalize (time shift, embed and edit) the content. As with most incumbent institutions, PRI is reluctant to develop transformational platform because of concerns they may bypass their current business model. So I asked them how do you transition baby boomer bosses into interactive? "Its a constant ducation process" Lunch and learns are effective "New media at noon". Also show them examples from the old media talking about new media: HBR, Wall Street Journal, the stuffier the rag the more creditable.
  

Wordle + Delicious

Wordle + Delicious =

Chandran Nair: Consumers Cop-out

Back in 2006 I studied under Chardrand Nair while at HKUST. During his course we tackled many corporate responsibility issues, and I was always impressed by his nuanced understanding of the issues. Mr. Nair is now sharing his expertise with a wider audience as a columnist for Ethical Coportation.

In his article Ethical Corporation: Columnists - Ethical consumers – Cop-out at the checkout Mr Nair calls out the green consumer as figment of our imginations. People love to say they would do the right thing , but when it comes down to it they don't come through. (Like the Bradley Effect, but for consumers) However, this doesn't mean that ethical companies are screwed, quite the opposite infact. Not only are ethical companies better able to avoid or handle negitive PR. They are in the position to capture the benefits of sourcing ethically as regulators continue to increase the price of externalities.

Best Buy opens up

A recent article Open beats Closed: Best Buy & new APIs - O'Reilly Radar discusses how Best Buy is leveraging information to creating value. In this case is Best Buy is opening all the data that drives www.bestbuy.com for anyone to create their own personalized Best Buy stores or mash ups or whatever. The cool thing is Best Buy is using information to develop a potentially transformational business model.

Chrome Your Industry

If you think social media has shaken things up wait until Google takes things to the next level of collaboration with their Chrome platform. How to Chrome Your Industry, by Umair Haque details the transformation aspects of this potentially ubiquitous operating system. Be preprepared for the largest knowledge circuit the world has ever seen.

Guatemalan Eco-House

Matt Panetiz, of Long Way Home, just sent me the following update on their eco-house.

"We just finished the the inside of our prototype rammed earth tire house. As you can tell from the photos we have set the foundation for a kitchen to be built with earth bags. We are going to combine these two construction styles to build the vocational school on the new land. Combined with an improved cooking stove, a dry composting latrine, water harvesting gutters, water harvesting tanks, and solar heated water we have quite the eco household...Mateo"

You can see photos of the house on Kodakgallery.com Slideshow

If want to know more about building structure from tires and other recycled materials check out Earthship

Flickr: kkhelgeson's Photostream

The other night I help my mom post a few photos of her paintings. Check out her artistic talent at Flickr: kkhelgeson's Photostream