Category: 5 Must-Read Posts

As is often the case, it is possible to connect the dots in trajectories of thinking across the web. In part, this happens because we all read each other’s work, and partly because online participation is driven by a culture of sharing – and a promiscuous idea has no respect for borders, geography or firewalls. This week’s five must-read posts will get you connecting your own dots. Enjoy!

1. What is the role of strategy, complexity and innovation – and how do we get them all to play nicely? Katie Chatfield suggests that complexity and innovation are the places where workplace culture and planning, marketing and funky thinking collide.
2. A couple of years ago, the Nielsen trust in advertising data confirmed what we had long suspected – that people trust other people far more than they trust advertisers or brands. But then, as blogs and other social media began to be positioned as barometers of trust, it seemed that these too, began to be questioned. Scott Monty, however, brings together a number of eMarketer data summaries to help us understand just who we trust.
3. And once you realise who we trust, this is going to change what you do at work – with your employees, your teams and maybe even your own time. But rather than becoming overwhelmed by the interconnectedness, you might just want to follow Greg Verdino’s advice and get big results by thinking and acting small. There’s a presentation to watch – and a book to buy. You know you want to!
4. Of course, the challenge is that social media conflates our personal and professional lives. So while we may be stepping out from behind our brands and engaging in small, targeted conversations with our brand advocates, where does “private” end and “public” begin? Mike Arauz asks what are the ethics of online secrecy.
5. One way is to get away from the compelling engagement offered by the computer – and Shel Israel does exactly that. While taking a stroll through the streets of San Francisco, he ponders whether Kerouac would have blogged.

Sometimes squeezing all the great reading down to five must-read posts can be a challenge. Occasionally I will cheat and embed a couple of links into the one reference, but for the most part, I play honestly.

This week, again, there are some great articles for your reading pleasure. Take a read, look around the authors sites, and don’t forget to subscribe to their blog. It’s a much easier way to read – even if you do lose a little of the online experience. Anyway, here are five posts from last week that you really must read:

1. In our myopic rush to a gazillion followers, fans or page views, we often forget that the social web runs on the spirit of generosity. With that in mind, Bryony Cole and Sarah Fosterling ask, who would you give $10 to?
2. It’s all well and good covering your bases online – creating a digital footprint that would be the envy of one of Jurassic Park’s famous raptors. But once you have completed that part of your strategy – you now need to move to content, right? Valeria Maltoni asks whether there is an app for that 😉
3. On the web – as in life – people often ask, “what’s in it for me?”. Of course, our sense of entitlement together with our sense of ownership have been powerful social drivers for the last 50 consumer-culture years. But there are other drivers – such as our sense of belonging. And as Mark Earls suggests, sometimes value exists in what we share.
4. Dan Zarrella performs a little online experiment around the concept of social proof on the web.
5. And finally, Ron Shevlin demands to be read, simply because he has the best blog post title of the week – refer madness. It’s all about referrals, so do make sure you take a look!

This week it’s an all-Australian must-read list.

1. Craig Wilson declares that Masterchef is the future of TV advertising, providing seven reasons to back up his case. And while I am about the only person in Australia to have no interest in the show, the ratings prove out its popularity and therefore its attractiveness to advertisers. But reality TV goes stale very quickly – it will be interesting to see how long the programming chefs can keep it fresh.
2. Publishers rarely get insight into the reasoning behind a strategy – they simply see the execution and are expected to deliver. This week, Ben Shepherd asks why are you using digital and suggests that a little more transparency could yield better results.
3. I have never been a fan of automated sentiment analysis, so Mandi Bateson’s Analysis of Sentiment Analysis strikes a chord with me. I particularly like the quote from Avinash Kaushik – “Most solutions stink. Not just stink… dinosaur’s breath after a meal stink.”
4. I love the way that Gordon Whitehead continues to stir-up conversation in his local area. His Lunaticks Society of Newcastle efforts have surfaced an online population that is more than willing
5. Zoe Scaman quotes Nicholas Carr – and suggests that the ready availability of information is giving us the illusion of knowledge. With a few keystrokes we can get the answer to almost any question – but does this mean we actually KNOW the answer. And could we take responsibility for our actions based on that information? There’s an important distinction.

There’s going to be a lot of coverage around the Australian federal election in the coming four weeks. There’ll be political discussion, debate around the policies (or lack thereof) and viewpoints on the way that the politicians are using social media. But rather than inundate you with this information, I will just point out two interesting developments, and then skip over to my usual coverage!

1. Matthew Gain over at Edelman has pulled together an app that analyses and ranks the twittering of various politicians. So far it seems that Malcolm Turnbull is way out in front. I wonder how reflective this will be of the final results – let’s check back in a few weeks!
2. As a board member of Vibewire, the youth not for profit that helps young media professionals gain valuable real world experience, I am excited to see the launch of electionWIRE. A joint Google-Vibewire project, electionWIRE allows young people all over the country to report the election in their own words and in their own way. (I’ll write more on this fascinating project in the coming weeks.)
3. Last year, Ray Wang surveyed 40 successful analysts covering the online industries (from enterprise to technology) and came up with Seven Tenets of Building a Star Analyst Firm. Interestingly, with a little tweaking, each of these can be applied to any form of team building – no matter whether you are running an accounting practice or creating a new agency.
4. Gaurav Mishra asks one of the questions that is most often asked by the social media skeptics – what is more social: playing with your real friends or making friends with strangers you are playing with? There’s a video from the Social Gaming Summit and a summary of the key points. But what’s the answer? You’ll have to read the post to find out.
5. If you’re in the mood for stories, take a look at Olivier Blanchard’s The Psychology of Failure (Pt 2). It’s a long post chock-full of lessons learned and challenges that sometimes are only resolved in unfortunate ways. After all, life can be grubby.

I was lucky enough to spend most of last week on vacation in the centre of Australia. It was a refreshing and reinvigorating experience. There was extremely limited mobile coverage (and what was available was no where near 3G) and a very small but expensive number of wireless hotspots. The relative “silence” helped focus my mind on “being away”. Having said that, I did take photos, some video and tap out a few notes for a travel diary (more on that soon).

The last part of the week saw me catching up on a few excellent blog posts, including these:

1. The TEDWomen conference – it seems that pinnacle of ideals – the TED conference – simply cannot ensure enough speaking spots for inspiring women leaders. As a result, they are now launching a specific TEDWomen conference to address the imbalance. While I am all for a separate event, it’s a shame there wasn’t a more concerted effort to address the imbalance on the main conference stage.
2. Dave Phillips puts together an interesting post on the @OldSpice campaign, suggesting it is viral, not social. What say you?
3. Ed Cotton has an interesting article on behavioural economics – and challenges us all to get across the basics (if you aren’t already). Is it the real deal – or is it just recasting an old world in a new light?
4. One I have to agree with – all customers are idiots. Right? John Dodds doesn’t just throw down the gauntlet, he throws it AT you. Yes you.
5. SMEGnation – Mandi Bateson suggests it’s time we all got over ourselves and raise our hands for what we truly believe in (ie our egos). Oh, and happy birthday, Mandi!

Well, I don’t know about you, but it has been an exceptionally busy six months. And now, here in Australia, we are heading into a new financial year … so I am hoping for a breather. I can’t see it actually happening!

Again, there were some great posts this week, but the following really stood out for me:

1. Here is a great podcast featuring young entrepreneurs. In this week’s Business21C podcast, Mary Nguyen and Alfred Lo talk about the business start-up incubator, Vibewire, where I am a member of the board. Check it out.
2. Iain Tait’s blog has been exploited by a pharma-hack. Yes, when WordPress gets a little out of date, holes emerge and these beasties crawl through. They usurp your search rankings and link back to you. Not nice.
3. Kevin Dugan has been on fire over the last couple of months – writing some brilliant posts. This one, on the subject of the BP Oil Spill is another cracker.
4. Russell Davies talks about the neurological hit that we get when we share stuff. It’s partly what makes social media and blogging so addictive and taps into my thinking about creating coincidence.
5. Julian Cole shares his lessons from two years of fulltime work. Some great insight from one of the bright young minds of the Australian industry.

Have you ever noticed the ebb and flow of blogging – how some weeks there are hundreds of new posts flooding the social media streams, while at other times they dwindle? There was a slow start last week, but it picked up as we hit Wednesday. Or perhaps it was me. Anyway, here are five great posts from last week. Enjoy!

1. In the great rush to push content out, we often forget to double check our trust index. Just watch how quickly social media oriented market research results spread. But how often do you double check the sample size, the reputation of the research group or even look at the focus and structure of the questions? Ron Shevlin suggests that you can’t always trust trust research, I tend to agree.
2. On the subject of asking the right questions, Umair Haque suggests that the role of governments and markets have been confused. Rather than looking at the whether governments should accept the dictates and direction of markets, perhaps we should look to something like ‘betterment’ – and we need new economic tools to help us. He suggests four new economic benchmarks.
3. Edward Boches provides a little context around Bud Caddell’s crowdfunding project – The Bucket Brigade. In this day and age, as Edward explains, you don’t need a gigantic network to create, experiment and succeed. You just need a committed and active network.
4. Patti Huntington reminds us that beauty is timeless with a post on Charlotte Rampling making the cover of Crush. Great to see some diversity of representation.
5. Jasmin Tragas shares a series of videos on cool things you can do with iPads and music.

A little late this week due to the long weekend, but here are some of the flecks of gold gleaned from the great alluvial stream of the web. Enjoy!

1. Getting people to step outside of their comfort zone is difficult. It is doubly so when you are dealing with executives who are measured and rewarded on short term results. Ross Dawson shares five keys to helping executive teams think about the future. Try it yourself!
2. The term “innovation” gets bandied about in almost every meeting. In fact, it has become a drinking game trigger. But when everyone innovates it’s hard to see the good wood from the plantation forest. Saul Kaplan suggests that we are confusing invention with innovation, and that it’s time to put our customers back in the centre of the experience.
3. When I was in my 20s, all my managers thought that I was going to take over the world. That my generation would sweep away the knowledge and value that had been accrued over the previous 50 years. It happened. But it’s a layering of experience over time, not a revolution. Gen X should read Rosetta Thurman’s Three Myths about Generation Y – the more things change, the more things stay the same (via Mandi Bateson)
4. When you are sweating over a concept – where it eeks its way into your imagination and won’t let go – what do you do? Neil Perkin encourages us to let our best ideas go.
5. Sometimes an explanation is best made by analogy. Is social media like golf? Craig Wilson thinks so. Makes me glad that web cams aren’t mandatory!

Each week as I flip through my fabulous Feedly feed reader, I make note of those posts that really stand out. I jot a few words in a draft post and a link and then publish it on a Monday morning. Hope you find it useful!

1. Lisa Barone has put together a great list of 52 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Social Media Company. If runs the gamut from brand monitoring through community and reputation management – and even to corporate alignment. Great stuff!
2. The future is notoriously hard to predict – just ask those futurists. Over at The Ad Contrarian, Bob Hoffman explains Why I Never Make Predictions, and shares a few recent examples of how it can go wrong.
3. Why are we driven to do things? What motivates us? Dan Pink says it’s autonomy, mastery and purpose and Katie Chatfield provides some nice contexualisation around Dan’s recent conversation with Clay Shirky. Well worth the read.
4. Speaking of motivation, James Fridley is motivated to help his Mum. And you can too! Read his post and find out how you can help one woman who has tapped into her autonomy, mastery and purpose.
5. Brian Solis (yes the man with the fab boots) talks social relationship management – a step beyond social CRM. The idea is that SRM spreads well beyond the customer service focus of CRM and impacts other parts of the enterprise. This stuff is right up my alley at the moment!

This week there’s a mish-mash of ideas, images and presentations. There’s food for thought, stimulation for the senses and some short, sharp shocks to kick start your imagination.

1. Valeria Maltoni shares 100 thoughts on social media
2. Shiv Singh talks social influence marketing and the convergence of online and offline identities
3. Jamie Madigan walks us through the psychology of games – why we do what we do with friends (and screw that other guy)
4. Jye Smith shows exactly how to measure the viral nature of video via the Nike Write the Future video – make your content great, but unsearchable – then leak the direct URL. From 100,000 to 6 million views in a few days. Seems like they know what they are doing.
5. Angus shares photos of the Carpet of Flowers in Brussels. Stunning. Makes me miss my friend Luc.