Mobile is at the forefront of representing a completely new way of thinking about marketing.

But in order to understand this we need to look beyond the SMS and the text voting, and start exploring the real potential of the platform.

Since the Mobile Abilities Map pdf, published two weeks ago, has received a great deal of interest. I thought it would be a good resource to readers if I collected and published my inspiration and ideas to each topic. Hopefully getting some inspirational juice flowing.

- I’ve added links to each resource on slides where this was possible.

I hope people appreciate the presentation, and continue sharing great links on their own blogs (and link back here) or in the comments section on this blog.

Jeff Jarvis in this video, from the Nokia Ideas Project, states that since the Internet is a connection machine, anything creating artificial middle men, preventing companies from connecting directly with their participants, will become problematic.

All that is true for the old Attention Web, but the whole problem seems to be turned into an opportunity when we change to the Everyday Life mindset: In which digital media companies become partners with their clients in order to supply a direct relationship with the readers and participants.

As Geoff Northcott of *supercollider pointed out very clearly in his post “visualizing the decline of the destination web, the rise of the social web”, the destination web is on the decline. And if Jaap Favier of Forrester is correct, then the Media Companies that will survive are the ones that create and facilitate arenas for brands to connect with their customers on.

This would give, that in the new perspective of digital media, what Jarvis points out is not a problem, it’s an opportunity. In the Every Day Life mindset, digital media is in the “Creating Direct Relations” business, not in the “messaging” or “middle men” business.

Our new digital abilities has opened up a whole new kind of marketing. I’ve previously called this both content marketing, situation marketing and even activity based advertising. But have after a rummage through my mac dictionary ended up with the slightly inexplanatory term Context marketing.

Context marketing is two directions of marketing: Collaboration and Utilities, and the convergence of them – which is where all the really juicy stuff happens :o)

I want to try to explain this by adding this slideshow, I find it incredibly difficult to not go into this mumbo jumbo kind of merry go round, so I kept it as short and precise as I could.

To sum it up in one sentence:

“it’s about earning ownership of the experience where your products are used and brands are shaped.”

Hopefully it it presents some valuable ideas, and inspire some new ones. Please let me know.

Digital is by some perceived as “marketing on sale”, maybe due to it’s lack of tangibility, “newness” or failing ability to show it’s potential as the common way of perceiving new stuff is through the lens of old stuff.

But online marketing seems to finally be outgrowing the display/message based advertising frame- and mindset. Starting to see an increased focus on deliberate, value adding services, accessibility and social interaction. In this context digital will and should become the most important interface between brands and participants and ergo the willingness to increase investment should hopefully be inevitable.

Digital marketing and advertising, and by that I mean EVERYTHING digital, should be your most expensive endeavor, and the reason is it’s abilities.

This is a short “Only in Digital” abilities list:

In the traditional brand and communication mindset brands have been thought that they are unwanted and intrusive, but this is not true. Brands and products create immense value in peoples lives, with digital they have been given the opportunity to add to this value through meaningful and deliberate action.

This is an invitation to start believing in your brand communications again…

A lot of intense activity the last couple of weeks, with presentations and alterations has produced a new updated edition of the presentation The New Brand Landscape.

A lot of old stuff for old readers, but hopefully I’ve managed to add some fresh stuff. For new readers who might not have seen the first edition this hopefully will present some valuable and inspiring thoughts.

The New Brand Landscape 2 tries to explain some of the most important changes in digital media, it’s effects and the new opportunities for marketers.

Companies and marketers should think of themselves and their content as igniters of conversations, not interrupters.

Discussing the findings in the Microsoft 3 screen Research these last couple of days, and reading the post “Give folk stuff to do together (again)” over on over at Mark Earls. It becomes interestingly obvious that marketing should think more about how to help people do or talk about stuff together. This gives me two thoughts:

1. If companies can ignite conversations and action, why do they continue to interrupt them? Is it because of a black & white perspective of advertising, that the only worth value it can create is encouraging a final “SALE”.



2. Making content shareable isn’t about getting people to forward an email with a URL in it. Sharing content is only the first part of the equation, real value is created when the content ignites conversations. According to Microsoft most discussions online are about content, so companies should help people find and share brilliant content that is worth talking about (I am starting to sound like Seth Godin four years ago :o).

In other words, go beyond shareability, create content to ignite conversations, not messages to interrupt existing ones.

Digital is not about technology, it’s about people and the situation their in. Finding brilliant solutions is all about studying these situations and discovering the contexts where companies can contribute, ad value, create meaning and become indispensable.

Steve Cunningham reminded me in a comment to one of my last posts that I was falling into my own trap (not his words, but mine :o) in regards to the fact that I was trying to limit Twitter to conversations, when in fact people should be allowed to use it any way they please.

This should be obvious to me, as I use my own Twitter account not for conversation, but as a feed from this blog and an inspirational desk drawer I update. But, in the heat of battle i obviously slipped up a bit…

So I wanted to take a step back and give a bigger view on my take on technology, people and situations.

First, the short history of developing technological solutions, a combination of thoughts from amongst others Jeffery Veen, Indi Young, Robert Hoekman, Mark Earls and Donald Norman:

- In the beginning of technology, we asked ourselves what can technology do? And then we built it, long lists of it, presented it to the customers and they found some of it interesting and useful, and a lot of it not.

- Then we started talking about users, these soulless mouse button clickers who have no ambition, motivation or context. We started asking people to envision what they thought they needed in constructed situations, the result being even longer lists of stuff that might be important to some people, but a lot of it not.

- So eventually we started thinking about situation, and a bigger picture outside of technology and “users”. We started saying that peoples anticipation, motivations and desires arise from the context they find themselves in. At the same time our/companies ability to ad value into this context is entirely dependent on our understanding of the situation as a whole and finding our role in it – and of course exploring new ways to make the situation even more valuable to the people and participants.

- Finally other people have been added to the equation, as an individual is the product of the ideas of their community, and can not be seen in isolation. They think and act as a result of their interactions with others.

So this is why I think saying it’s about people is a bit to narrow, it’s about context and culture, it’s about situation.

And this is why I’ve been trying to write some stuff on Situation Marketing. Where the goal is not to do stuff because technology can, or produce stuff because the people we ask say it would be a good idea. Our job is to study people in real situations, and be inspired by their every day life. It sounds a bit elitist, but I believe new ideas come from experts. People brilliant at articulating solutions within the context being studied, in this the role of people is to inspire the right thinking.

- Both Malcolm Gladwell at PopTech and Donald Norman in Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things point this out, saying that asking non-experts to articulate their understanding of an object or situation leaves them to become conservative and articulate solutions they later on will be unhappy with.

To sum it up:
It’s about situations. We need to explore these situations in order to identify which contexts companies can add value and where they can make a difference. And then, by understanding people and technology, choose the appropriate tool to achieve the goal.

And an extra thanks to Steve for the heads up :o)

Understanding collaboration through the lens of Itay Talgam and a collection of the worlds foremost conductors.

The best event I attended last year was the Picnic Conference 08′ in Amsterdam. Filled with interesting people and invaluable insights. Now they finally put the presentations from the main hall up on Vimeo, and I recommend most of them :o) – Thanks to Putting People First for “finding them”.

I’ve picked out Itay Talgam’s presentation on Conducting Creativity as my favorite, not necessarily because it contains a lot of relevant technical stuff or hands out project experiences. It doesn’t, Itay’s focuses on putting great conductors into context under the goal of teaching his listeners about creative collaboration.

This ads to the content on this blog, because.. carrying on the theme from some of the previous posts; in order to see solutions we need to understand humans, and the interaction between them.

This would have to go without saying when we’re trying to figure out the drivers and incentives for collaboration, community and participation. And is essential in order to understand what this would mean to your company and the amount of control one protects or releases to the public.

The talk creates a beautiful and valuable perspective, touching on a range of different features related to collaboration and creativity. And… it was the only presentation I can remember that got an almost never ending standing ovation!

Here is a selection of three quotes by Itam, or him quoting others, all found in the presentation:

“It’s not only about personal style, this is a part of it, and I think an interesting part. but it’s about creating a certain set of culture that enables certain modes of collaboration between people”

“Without order nothing can exist, without chaos nothing can grow”

“The worst damage I can do to my organization is to give them a very clear indication. Why? Because that creates a one on one relations between me and the players. Which makes the ignore the ensemble and work directly with me”

Have a look at Picinic’s Vimeopage for more videos from Picnic 08′.

Itay Talgam at PICNIC08: Conducting Creativity from PICNICCrossmediaweek on Vimeo.

As participants worlds fragment across a range of platforms, arenas, channels and screens, companies are met with an opportunity to build behind bigger ideas.

This means both the opportunity to move the marketing from messaging, to content to context. But also to explore the Brand Situation. Where the brand fits into the lives of their participants, and facilitates the situation relevant to the product, in order to create value and become invaluable.

This slideshow is a follow-up to my last one, Three Major Changes In Digital Marketing, and it tries to put these three changes into a bigger, relevant context.

I’ve added some voice-over to this one as well, even though it’s not earth shatteringly brilliant :o) It hopefully ads more value to the experience.

Find it on slideshare.net/helgetenno, or below.

Viral is the spreading of ideas from hive to hive with the help of “sneezers”. (Seth Godin)

Now, this resent research from ChoiceStream (via NeeTeeVee) states that the most common method for finding video content online is plain browsing.

So, what I’m thinking about is not creating videos to make them “viral” but to make them receive recommendations, reviews and getting them to rank high in community video leaderboards.Put all the buzz on sneezing and viral aside… What does it take to make a video popular inside a community?