I thought it would be unfair to spend last week blogging about all the other presenters at WORLDCOMP’08 and OMMA Behavioral without sharing my own presentation with you! So I’ve recorded it, and I’m putting it together with the slide show so you can share in the love. Expect the video sometime tomorrow.

In the meantime, I’d like you to enjoy a delightful piece from Nicholas Carr at The Atlantic called, Is Google Making Us Stupid? Nicholas has written a long article about our growing inability to consume long articles.

Here is one of the many passages that should rekindle your ability to ponder:

For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I too read less. These days, when I am inclined to pick up a “book” (a strange device with physical pages and black ink), I lean more towards Grisham than Goethe. I find that I have to force myself to read the sort of non-fiction that keeps my mind sharp and my thinking fresh.

So in the interest of keeping this post at a length commensurate with our newly shortened attention spans, I’ll stop here and turn it over to you. Have you found your thought processes changing with the use of the Interweb? Are you more in the market for ‘War and Peace’ or ‘Dilbert’? In short, has the Internet made you stupid?

Nova Spivack, of Twine fame, has come out with an interesting blog post questioning whether our ‘junk’ DNA (the 97% of our DNA that doesn’t code for amino acids) could be a more effective storage mechanism for communal knowledge than Wikipedia:

There is of course one other place to store knowledge which may be even better than the Wikipedia — and that is DNA. By storing knowledge in human DNA of living humans, or of common bacteria for that matter, it could then potentially be passed down and spread through generations into the far future. However the mutability of DNA over time might gradually introduce errors that would degrade the information within particular lines of DNA over long periods of time.

Perhaps this could however be mitigated by comparing DNA samples from a large cross-section of individuals within the population of descendants of original holders of DNA-knowledge-archives in the future — this would effectively enable statistical error cancellation. The farther in the future from the date at which the knowledge is “written” to the DNA of some number of humans, the more people’s DNA would be needed to eliminate the errors statistically. This would however in principle counteract mutations and enable the reliable recovery of messages in DNA even very far in the future.

Interestingly, the problem that he posits here and his proposed solution mirror the wiki process itself: by gathering data from everyone, errors are likely to occur, but by normalizing across a large sample, those errors should be minimized if not eliminated.

Spivack goes on to cite an article by Karl Kruszelnicki about a language that possibly already exists in our DNA:

According to the linguists, all human languages obey Zipf’s Law. It’s a really weird law, but it’s not that hard to understand. Start off by getting a big fat book. Then, count the number of times each word appears in that book. You might find that the number one most popular word is “the” (which appears 2,000 times), followed by the second most popular word “a” (which appears 1,800 times), and so on. Right down at the bottom of the list, you have the least popular word, which might be “elephant”, and which appears just once.

Set up two columns of numbers. One column is the order of popularity of the words, running from “1″ for “the”, and “2″ for “a”, right down “1,000″ for “elephant”. The other column counts how many times each word appeared, starting off with 2,000 appearances of “the”, then 1,800 appearances of “a”, down to one appearance of “elephant”.

If you then plot on the right kind of graph paper, the order of popularity of the words, against the number of times each word appears you get a straight line! Even more amazingly, this straight line appears for every human language - whether it’s English or Egyptian, Eskimo or Chinese! Now the DNA is just one continuous ladder of squillions of rungs, and is not neatly broken up into individual words (like a book).

So the scientists looked at a very long bit of DNA, and made artificial words by breaking up the DNA into “words” each 3 rungs long. And then they tried it again for “words” 4 rungs long, 5 rungs long, and so on up to 8 rungs long. They then analysed all these words, and to their surprise, they got the same sort of Zipf Law/straight-line-graph for the human DNA (which is mostly introns), as they did for the human languages!

There seems to be some sort of language buried in the so-called junk DNA! Certainly, the next few years will be a very good time to make a career change into the field of genetics.

Incidentally, this type of analysis is what generates most great discoveries: somebody looking at two things that have never before been connected to each other and saying, “Hey, there’s a pattern here!”

Spivack goes on to suggest that all we need is a way of writing to the DNA and we’re sweet (assuming we also have a way to read it).

Wouldn’t it be great? Imagine you’re the first person encoded—you’d be unstoppable at pub quizzes. You’d make millions on Jeopardy! and 1 vs. 100. You’d be totally insufferable (nobody likes a literal know-it-all), but at least you’d be rich.

Unfortunately, there’s an issue. Not with the idea that societal knowledge can be carried within us—that already exists. How else do salmon know where to go? No, it’s more the idea of our ability to mechanically control this process that pulls me up short.

Mainly, the problem is that there’s no single-source option for DNA. If somebody updates Wikipedia, we all see the updated version, but with DNA, you’d have to have an intimidatingly active sex life to make sure new information is properly distributed.

And how do you handle the question of version control? It would be worse than figuring out whether you qualify as a Native American. “Well, my great-great-grandmother was first infected with knowledge in 2014, so my batch is more recent than yours…” What a mess.

Sorry, Nova, I think we’ve got a ways to go before your idea can be made a reality. I will say this, though, if you can make the semantic web happen, I’ll back you for wikiDNA as well.

(hat tip: Brian Hayes)

Note: This post is dual purpose: it makes some points in which I profoundly believe, and it also enters me to win an Asus Eee PC from Marketing Pilgrim. Wish me luck!

We are all only human.

Sounds obvious, right? Then why are we so shocked if our politicians make the slightest mistake? Why do we mock celebrities for failing to maintain unattainable standards of perfection? Why are we so afraid to allow our customers to witness our flaws?

It’s because we suffer from Wizard-of-Oz Syndrome.

We expect our politicians to be infallible, and we are disappointed when they are not.

We wish to see in our celebrities the greatest heights of heroism, and we wring our hands at the depths to which they fall.

We believe that our customers will only appreciate us if we are like great wizards, and we work as hard as we can to keep the curtain shut, so they won’t see us for who we really are: mere mortals, just like they are, prone to mistakes and doubt and regret.

The world is changing, though, has changed. The curtain has been forced open by a wired and networked public, one that wants to know more about the man than about the wizard.

This is the first lesson of Radically Transparent, by Andy Beal and Dr. Judy Strauss: that it is no longer enough to succeed as a wizard; you now have to succeed as a human being.

Show what you are doing, reveal your processes, acknowledge your mistakes, and participate fully in conversation that concerns you. Be radically transparent or risk your reputation and top line.

In many ways, it is easier to be a magician. You control the experience and the perception. You don’t have to tell anyone how your tricks work. You decide who your volunteers will be and where the camera will be positioned.

The problem is that it’s no longer an option.

The community immediately comes down hard on those who employ conversation spin, control, manipulation or spam. Anonymity is discouraged, and nearly all posts to a conversation include the author’s real e-mail address.

…the internet is abuzz with conversation, and some of it is definitely about you and your company. With the explosion of social networks and consumer-generated media, no organization, brand, or individual escapes online mention by stakeholders, like it or not.

We don’t want wizards anymore; we already know they are phony. So there’s no mileage in pretending. Let go of your personas and be pleasantly surprised at how much people appreciate you for who you are and your company for what it is. Beal and Strauss offer ten Rules of Customer Engagement; from the seventh:

7. Be Authentic
Truth, honesty and authenticity are required if you want to have a good reputation online… you have to have a trustworthy character first, and hiding your flaws online will only make it worse when the citizen journalists discuss your cover-up al over the Web.

You have to have a trustworthy character first.

Once the curtain is pulled back and you can’t hide, you’d better have something to deliver. You’d better really care about your customers, about your community, about quality.

If the man behind the curtain can’t deliver on the promise, the first step is to admit it. Then get to work, immediately, to improve.

It is okay to be exactly who you are, and it’s only by accepting this that you can transform into the person or company you want to be.

Feedback welcome, as always.

From the consumer perspective: They need to become functional at a faster rate than people get bored with them.

From the business perspective: They need to become boring at a faster rate than they become functional.

(The above is reprinted from a comment I left on Read/Write Web.)

I know, Facebook hasn’t become boring yet: average time spent on the site is up, although it’s flattening, at least in the UK.

Nonetheless, Web offerings follow a predictable pattern. At first, they are fun and cool and new and interesting, but nothing can be new forever. Ipso facto, for a site to have longevity, the attraction must morph to something other than pure novelty.

Take email. Remember when getting an email was cause for boasting? It was a while ago, to be sure. The reason we’re all still using email is that its utility increased at least as quickly as our fascination with it waned. Same with Google.

Neat for neat’s sake doesn’t last—but that doesn’t mean it can’t be supplanted by useful.

When I first signed up to Facebook, it was interesting just to find old friends and watch the connections grow. Now I use it mostly to play Scrabulous. What about you? How has your Facebook usage evolved?

Are there four more dreaded words in the English language?

I know the stereotype: you immediately visualized a woman, a man, and a relationship in trouble. But we all dread those words. They could just as easily come from your boss, your housemate, or your father. Nowadays, they’re coming from every company looking to have a “conversation” with you so they can “engage” more. It makes me cringe to hear it, and I’m a conversational marketer!

The prevailing New Age wisdom is that it’s always best to talk about things. But, let’s face it, sometimes you just don’t feel like it.

Sometimes you just want to do your thing, without having to discuss it or analyze it or debate it.

Last night a friend told me she had signed up as an Amazon affiliate, when she had initially wanted to go with Barnes & Noble. “Amazon just made it so easy,” she said. “They anticipated the different types of people who might be signing up — from techies to non-tech businesspeople — and gave a clear, automated path for each of them. With BN, on the other hand, I had to have a [shudder] dialogue with them.”

One of my biggest frustrations since moving to New Zealand is the number of times I’m forced to interact with a human being when I don’t think I should have to. Plane travel is a prime example. I prefer to book my flights in the middle of the night, after work and exercise and dinner and dishes and telly. I want to spend as much time as I feel like exploring every possible routing and date option, and then I just want to buy the thing. For overseas travel, this is an impossibility in New Zealand. The only thing you can book online is a straight round trip, and since I always have stopovers and visit multiple cities, I have to do my travel shopping during the day and with a person.

I hate it.

If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I am a passionate proponent of keeping humanity in the equation. But a part of that humanity is understanding that sometimes we just want to be left alone.

Companies engaging in conversational marketing need to understand it has its place, and that its place is not necessarily at the point of transaction. Some purchases need to be talked through personally, with questions being answered and hands being held. In general, though, once we’re ready to buy, we want smooth, clear, simple systems that let us do what we want with a minimum of fuss.

This is true in relationships as well, by the way. Sometimes it’s healthy to talk things out, but sometimes you just need to let go and move on. Relationships are like plants. Yes, you need to stay on top of the weeds, but if you only worry about pulling weeds and ignore the water and compost and fertilizer, your plant will die.

So if you feel like having a conversation, leave a comment. If you don’t, don’t. It’s up to you.

Just let me know…

Maybe if I use the word in the title I’ll rank first on Google for it

Yesterday, catalyzed by a post from David Berkowitz, I said that there’s just too much information. Too much control. Take cars, for example. As I wrote in the automotive mag Top Gear NZ a year and a half ago:

…high-profile [auto] manufacturers have fallen prey to the urge to provide too much information. BMW’s iDrive is a prime example. If you absolutely must interact with 700-odd functions, the iDrive isn’t a bad way to do it. The problem is that most people just don’t want that much choice.

I also promised I’d put forward what I see as the inevitable outcome of this overwhelming overload of info:

The inevitable result of too much information is the return of the intermediary.

Yes, Andrew Keen, I remain optimistic that your longing for a properly hierarchical world will be indulged. The value of the ‘cultural gatekeepers’ will reassert itself, for the simple fact that nobody can able to assimilate all of the available information without these intermediaries.

Business models arise out of perceived needs, but, like the Observer Effect in quantum physics, they fundamentally change the markets in which they operate, creating new needs that are then addressed by new models, which then create new needs, etcetera ad infinitum.

Web 2.0 arose out of a need for self-expression, a need stymied by Old Media and its nearly insurmountable barriers to entry. Millions of individuals with something to say were aching for the opportunity to self-publish, blog, record, distribute, blather, yap and holler, and the fall of the Old Media Wall led to a mass riot of people scrambling over its rubble, elbowing each other in the rush to be first into the holy land of disintermediated ‘fame’.

That phenomenon was driven by the needs of the producers, and the producers were us: you, me, our parents, our friends, our siblings. It provided innumerable opportunities and drove a radical transformation in the creative landscape.

But it also created a need.

It created a market out of equilibrium, where the ability to supply has far outstripped the ability to consume.

The next phenomenon will be driven by the consumers. If you’re a producer right now, you’re sweet. You’ve got GarageBand and YouTube and Blogger; there’s no shortage of ways to express yourself. If you’re a consumer, though, you’re either overwhelmed or not bothering to try keeping up.

This phenomenon has already begun. It’s why sites like Digg do well, because as much as we want total control and total information, we’re tired, and there’s a secret part of us that just wants someone to tell us what’s worth reading without having to sift through garbage.

It’s what VortexDNA is based on, the understanding that our need is not for infinite content, but for relevant content.

It’s why systems and sites and companies and individuals that work on cultivating trust will have a significant competitive advantage in the coming years. We’ve read too much rubbish to waste our time unless we’re confident it’s worthwhile.

Do you agree? Disagree? What do you see as the next major market shift?