In Technology, a common request is to predict what’s next. Today, looking into the crystal ball, the view is definitely cloudy – or to be more precise a complete cloud obscures the view. This is not just financial meltdown angst but more importantly the future of computing – Cloud Computing. Much is already written on the subject of the Cloud and much confusion reigns as to what it is precisely, as well as the issues it raises around personal data security and privacy – hence the cloudiness of the Cloud. For the non-geek, the Cloud is essentially made from the combination of datacentres acting as computing factories that use wireless networks to connect people to software being delivered as an online service. The Economist quotes Lutz Heuser, Head of Research at SAP, who refers to it as an “Internet of services” but adds that the cloud metaphor is probably more adpt. But despite this complexity, the Cloud will pervade economies transforming behaviours, societies and most importantly the way we communicate. Here are five headlines describing how communicators can respond to this change: 1. Understand Everything Will Connect: Through the Cloud, information will increasingly become connected to sources, related comment, opinions and disagreements in a seamless way. This will make the connectivity of Web 2.0 seem tame. Internet users will have to become navigators of connections, understanding everything has a back story, some of it spurious but all of it trackable. As professionals we will live in a digital world that we must understand in tremendous depth and detail. Context will become king and we will have to be masters of context. 2. Focus On Making It Real: The danger of this cloudy world is that everything is shaped digitally but it becomes ethereal. Consumers or Citizens will look to make it real by building tangible connections between digital and the real world. Our success will be shaped by how we make the Cloud tangible for our audiences – understanding the interface will be the key to success. To quote a comment businessweek.com: “It should allow people to make real things, assemble real things and have real experiences and deliver real services. Go beyond sharing photos and share reality.” 3. Develop Influence: In the increasingly vast interconnected web, understanding who influences (at a global and micro level) and how influence spreads will replace the traditional need for control. It will be communicators who can work with influencers to create new ideas that will achieve powerful relationships. Understanding the nodes that create influence, who then amplifies an idea and how conversations and stories spread and gain momentum will be at the heart of communications strategy – not just for traditional Public Relations approaches but truly conversational Brand strategies. 4. Use Embedded Brains: An extension of the Cloud will be the ability for embedded computing to allow objects to talk to one another. A car part will tell the garage via an ip address when it is going to breakdown. How we build strategies to support this interaction between the real and digital will become a key measure of success. How Business harnesses and exploits this transparency will be a key marketing differentiator transforming customer service and expectations. 5. Exploit Mobile Mania: In the Cloud, computing will become more and more disembodied and so be consumed where it is needed. Consumers will be able to access it at anytime through mobile devices. As a result, mobile communications will take another leap forward and become even more sophisticated. The communicators that master the immediacy and human nature of this new model will be the ones that work best in the cloudy future. Amid these headline opportunities, there is also a dark side to the Cloud. Questions are raised about how it will be made secure and, importantly, what happens to privacy and an individual’s rights to access their own information when so much personal data is held by the companies that maintain the Cloud. One obvious bug bear is who will control a person’s ability to store and access information kept within the Cloud. Does a Business have the right to turn off your personal data stored within the Cloud? As with previous generations of new Technology, the industry will need to create technologies and protocols to solve these challenges. Clearly, Businesses will need to be acutely aware of the Public Relations pitfalls of entering the cloudy future. Yet in the post credit crunch world, the need to get more out of less, communicate more efficiently and create new business models – all of which are benefits of the Cloud – will mean many firms have no choice. Further reading • The Economist, Cloud Computing Supplement, Technology Quarterly, Autumn 2008 • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PNuQHUiV3Q • Cloud computing: A catchphrase in puberty: How Google and Amazon will take your money and step on your dreams (www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/25/cloud_dziuba/) • Cloud Computing: Are there dangers to having information infrastructure, software and services hosted on the internet rather than on our own personal computers?, The Times Online, 5 May 2008
Publicity, Stories, Conversation and Chaos
Rick Murray circulated a great blog post from Seth Godwin
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/03/the-difference-betw…
The post outlines how Storytelling is the art that elevated our role from publicists to great public relations practitioners. The jist of the comment is that essentially through a story we can create a mythology and perception that has lasting resonance as opposed to a release of information that generates a headline or newsletter article or comment.
Luke’s post on the ability for video to tell stories got me thinking about what elements of storytelling shape a mental picture that endures. My thoughts were that the story should cover some of the points below (your thoughts on any additional points welcome) :
1. Narrative – beginning, middle and end
2. Resolves a mystery, paradox, moral dilemma
3. Characters/organization who go through a journey
4. Illuminates a specific setting, back drop or world view
Back in the day brand owners and advertisers in particular became very good at telling stories think of the Milk Tray Man or the packet of Pilas Phogg Snacks (remember them?) but there are many classic adds that exploited this storytelling ability. Ironically PR agencies were less effective at story telling and often defaulting to tactical release driven media relations and publicity, however, the new environment of social media presents a great opportunity for PR people to set this right.
As we know we are now in an age of conversation where the driving force of communication are comments, thoughts and ideas that are exchanged rapidly and even tweeted in only 180 characters. But this creates a challenge for communicators. How do we tell a story in this environment? The answer is not easy because listening and contributing to a conversation makes a narrative very hard. Traditional messaging does n’t work because a conversation means listening and responding real time.
The answer has to be strategic, based on analysis and insight. If we have a way of analyzing the whole conversation at a moment in time then we can build a framework for our story to engage the conversation. However, we also need a way of rapidly refining what we have to say and this is where monitoring comes in and using 2.0 tools to listen and adapt our point but within the umbrella of a story. Two things are important here: firstly influencers and this is because it more effective to listen to the influential and then a more powerful endorsement and amplifier when the influential comment on our story. Secondly the issues are key because if the story is built around a known issue that people are talking about then it will automatically start to become a part of a much bigger issues-driven narrative. The nirvana for this kind of story telling is when you become an idea starter or partner with an idea starter whether it is Dita Von Teese to tell a story about a new kind of lingerie or David Rothschild to campaign on re-using plastics if your idea starts or ignites the story then it spreads and grows exponentially.
However, the challenge does n’t end with conversation because there is also chaos. A great report from Forrester estimated that 80 percent of comment on a brand is beyond the control of the brand owner. Again in this scenario the company has to work with the influential to be understood. However, the nature of this conversation can be chaotic take for instance the spoof video circulating recently of news coverage around Sony product launch that revolved around the company being honest and to put it mildly cursing the usefulness of it’s products.
Attachment(s) available for download until 2009-04-10
Attachment: THE TRUTH ABOUT ELECTRONIC GOODIES.wmv, 5.07 MBytes
This is the live rail of social media and how we tell stories in this world of chaos is a thorny issue. A part of the answer must be in authentic ideas, conversations and humility in story telling as the video shows anything too slick or messaged is resented and parodied. But it takes a lot of strength to remain gracious in the face of this kind of onslaught. Unless of course this was itself an attempt at authenticity.
Filed under society 2.0
links for 2008-06-19
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The games industry says British universities are failing to equip graduates with the skills it needs. The warning comes from the industry campaign group “Games Up?”, which says games developers in Britain are facing a serious skills shortage.
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Apple could face an uphill battle convincing big businesses to abandon the BlackBerry in favour of its iPhone mobile handset, according to a study released on Wednesday. An analysis of responses from 105 chief information officers by Sanford Bernstein, th
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Steven Spielberg and the founders of the DreamWorks studio are in talks with India’s Reliance Big Entertainment about financing their new film venture, in a move that will see DreamWorks end its three-year association with Paramount Pictures, the Hollyw
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ITV has signed a potentially ground-breaking deal to develop new programmes with Twentieth Century Fox TV using joint funding and combined teams of US and British writers and producers.
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Mark Rabe has been appointed to head Yahoo’s UK sales team, replacing Blake Chandlee who left the firm for Facebook last October.
Filed under Uncategorized
links for 2008-06-17
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More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a World Information Access report. In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006, it revealed.
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Instant messaging may turn out to be a large area of long-term growth for Google and Yahoo, especially in the mobile sector.
Filed under Uncategorized
links for 2008-06-10
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Apple has unveiled the second generation iPhone, with support for faster 3G wireless networks. Steve Jobs said the phone would be “more affordable” for consumers, starting at $199 (£100). The new iPhone also comes with GPS satellite navigation built in f
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A proposed merger between United Business Media and Informa has been greeted as a credible combination of two complementary business media groups, timed to take advantage of private equity buyers’ new found financial limitations.
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A new generation of social networking sites is gaining support in Silicon Valley, challenging the established models of leaders MySpace and Facebook. FriendFeed, a service founded by the creators of Google Maps and Gmail, is at the head of an anarchic cou
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Burgeoning growth on the internet helped overcome a slump in newspapers to lift overall spending on advertising in the UK by 4.2 per cent last year, figures released on Monday showed.
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Motorola has introduced full-length films to watch on its mobile handsets for the first time, offering downloads including The Italian Job, Star Trek and Team America: World Police to UK customers. A deal with Paramount Digital Entertainment has made 40 t
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Former Linden Lab chief technology officer Cory Ondrejka has been appointed to the new position at EMI of senior vice-president of digital strategy.
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U2′s manager Paul McGuinness has said the group will not let fans download their music for free.
McGuinness said the band would consider using “whatever technology is available”, but claimed that Radiohead’s decision to allow fans to pay what they want w -
A psychiatrist specialising in treating those who worry about spending too time playing videogames has said pornography is more accepted than World of Warcraft.
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Sky, Virgin Media and Joost have submitted concerns about Project Kangaroo to the Office of Fair Trading. The firms say the in-development video-on-demand service could dominate the market and stifle competition.
Filed under Uncategorized
links for 2008-06-03
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Microsoft’s live search will be the default search engine on all PCs made by Hewlett Packard for the US and Canadian markets from January 2009.
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Adobe has made a move into online document sharing with the launch of the Acrobat.com community site. It allows people to create, store and share documents online, and hold web conferences to discuss changes. It was unveiled at the same time as the new ve
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Tighter regulation of the secondary ticketing market is being demanded by a group representing 400 musicians and their managers, who claim that a partnership between Madonna and Viagogo ticket resale site suggests the industry cannot regulate itself.
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Warner Bros quietly rolled out a trial version of an ambitious on-demand video website over the weekend, offering archives of shows including Friends, Smallville and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as web-exclusive content and social networking features.
Filed under Uncategorized
links for 2008-05-30
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There should be tighter controls on the management of the BBC’s website – in part to prevent it stifling commercial rivals, the BBC Trust has said. After reviewing bbc.co.uk, the trust said it was “an excellent service” but that its content had to be diff
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Dell is joining the burgeoning ranks of companies offering cut-down laptops aimed at the developing world and general consumers. The laptop was shown by Michael Dell to the editor of website Gizmodo at the All Things Digital Conference.
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In a new definition of a publicity stunt, Channel 4 and Honda last night turned to a team of skydivers to tackle the problem of viewers tuning out of traditional television advertising and sho2w a live skydive during the entire commercial break.
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Web measurement firm comScore has paid $44.3m (£22.4m) for mobile specialist M:Metrics, merging two of the biggest digital traffic research companies.
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NME is expanding its online offering by relaunching its mobile website with a searchable gig guide, discounts to its Club NME nights and music and video downloads.
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Google used its annual developer conference on Wednesday to show off its nearly completed Android system to about 3,000 computer programmers, hoping to cultivate more services and advertising. Features included a way to unlock phones by drawing a specific
Filed under Uncategorized
