I Invented A Flying Coffee-Maker. Now What?

I’m all hooked up and ready to go on Google Wave. I downloaded Sidewiki. I saw the iPhone spot and downloaded Bump. It’s ego-boosting to be out on the edge with all of my new toys that my clients and colleagues are just starting to hear about and hopefully hearing from me.

And if I want to get even closer to the edge, I’m going to start investing heavy amounts of time and energy to developing my own idea. Wouldn’t it be awesome if I could use my webcam to not only display my unshaven face in real-time but also some crazy 3d animation on top of it? Cool, no doubt.

I like cool. I’d say the majority of us do. But what now?

I don’t have to tell you this, but more than ever, we have the ability to reach the masses with our messages, stories and our ideas. We have a brand new sandbox and close to an even playing field with the Apples and Googles to innovate and change the world (see crowdsourcing, app stores, social media). More of us than ever are dedicating our lives to inventing and building a flying coffee maker. And more of us than ever are finding ourselves pridefully approaching the edge by purchasing our flying coffee makers and showing them off to our friends. There are thousands, probably millions, of flying coffee makers already on the market and probably millions more to come.

Remember how much you used to make fun of the useless products in the AirMall magazine? They were intriguing and oftentimes left you amazed that we (humans) even had that capability now…but your rational brain quickly turned on and recognized the lack of benefit. Ever wonder what happened to Sharper Image? They briefly sustained their brand on the “ooooh”s and “ahhhh”s but weren’t selling anything. How many times did you swing in the store as you were strolling through the mall just to try out the new massage chair and then walk right out?

The new sandbox is starting to get crowded, and the reality is, we’re right in the middle of an AirMall magazine or Sharper Image store in the mall without even realizing it. The curve is going to start trending downward once we realize that Sidewiki and Wave are never going to catch on. They’re cool. They’re not useful. I’m no prophet, but my gut tells me AR falls squarely into this same category.

Here’s the application:
Many of us have been spending far too much time trying to develop the next big thing and not nearly enough time optimizing the useful tools we already have. Now, I don’t want true innovators to go anywhere. Keep doing what you’re doing. But some of us are pioneers and some of us are settlers. We need both. Right now, far too many settlers think they’re pioneers. If you’re a settler, that’s a GOOD thing. Leave the flying coffee maker in your brain. Pick up the useful tools that the great innovators/pioneers of our generation and previous generations have developed and figure out how to best optimize them to tell your brand’s or your client’s story.

It’s quite possible, and I would even say probable, that the great innovation that changed the world was e-mail – or an automatic coffee-maker. Save this post if I’m wrong, but I think Google Wave is just an attempt to make it fly.

Social Media: My Job Just Got A Lot More Complicated (IS Conference ’09)

Preface: I believe in social media. I do not believe it is a fad – I think it will change the way marketers and advertisers think, permanently. This is a summary of my presentation at Houston’s Interactive Strategies Conference (IS Conference ’09).

This video began circulating around our office a couple of weeks ago. If you haven’t seen it, my guess is, you’ve seen one like it.



Excited? I was the first time I saw it.

Now I realize that the credibility of this video has essentially been torn apart over the past couple of weeks, but that isn’t the point of this post. This video is merely representative for my purposes. The conclusion that the creator of this video wants us to get to (a bit forcefully and deceptively) is that we’ve found the next golden egg in our business. Pour your investment into social media and watch your return – low cost, high visibility (incredibly high visibility according to videos like this) – how could you go wrong? Get your Facebook fan page, Twitter account, YouTube channel and LinkedIn profile set up – then sit back and revel in the results. After all, there are hundreds of millions of people accessing these channels right? The message we’re hearing is that it’s just that simple. Is it that simple?

I could go on for pages on this, so I’ll compress it to 2 central arguments and spare you my illustrations (if you’re interested in more detail and missed the conference, dm me on twitter or e-mail me and I’ll be happy to expand):

1. I hate to pull personal experience into this, but I’m going to have to (and I only do so with the confidence that most of the readers of this post can relate). My grandmother refuses to use e-mail. Refuses. She won’t even own a computer. She moved from Houston to Austin a few years ago and we got her a computer so we could keep in touch more often. She sold it within a week. She doesn’t want to have to learn something new. “Just call me if you want to talk,” she’d say.

My dad (babyboomer) not only doesn’t understand Twitter or Facebook, he mocks them. “Why would I want to know what you’re doing all day? That’s stupid”, he’d say. Now I realize that the fastest growing age demographic for Facebook is 55-65 – this is significant, no doubt. But if you want to talk to my grandmother or my dad, you better think about some different channels. Know anyone like this?

2. We all love stats. Having a big chart to back up our argument gives us a little warm and fuzzy. The video above is loaded with them. Let’s assume, for the time being, that the stats are accurate. Here’s the problem: they’re being used manipulatively. If they reinforce what we want to hear, we won’t dig a little deeper to find the usable data behind these stats.

A couple of examples:

MySpace announced 3 years ago that they surpassed 100 million user accounts. That’s a staggering statistic. I have four. I also haven’t accessed any of those accounts in at least 2 years.

Twitter has 30 million+ accounts (I don’t know the exact number, but it’s a lot). If we took the time to not accept this stat at face value, we’d see that 80% of those accounts have tweeted less than 5 times. We’d also see that 75% of tweets come from 5% of Twitter users. There are a lot of people you can reach using Twitter, but do yourself (or your clients) the favor of making sure the stat is usable before adding it to your pitch or presentation.

One of the only usable stats I saw in this video was that 78% of surveyed consumers trust recommendations from online peers while a mere 14% trust ads. Whoa, now we’re onto something! But wait. Razorfish just released their Social Influence Marketing Report (“social influence” marketing is their non-conformist terminology for social media), in which they concluded that “consumers are more likely to trust television ads than online friends when making purchasing decisions.” Scratching my head. I’m not discrediting research or the importance of it – I’m merely noting how far people will go to get us to see their point of view. I’d like to see the profiles of the users surveyed for the video above.

Here’s my conclusion: social media is no golden egg. It doesn’t make our jobs easier – in fact, it makes them far more difficult. When we respond to the pressures of, “where’s our facebook fan page?” or “throw up a Twitter account; it’ll take 5 minutes!”, we’re buying into this manipulative crap (forgive my cynicism – that’s usually not my style). When we build our strategies around social media or reach for the channels before deciding what we’re using them for, we’re metaphorically pulling tools out of the toolbelt before we’ve decided what we’re building and who we’re building it for.

The toolbelt is growing with far more dynamic tools than we’ve ever seen before. This requires us to be creative, smart and thorough. We haven’t found the golden egg (or “magic beans” as Seth Godin refers to it) of this generation. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. We now have more tools…incredible tools that will change our thinking forever. But it shouldn’t change our high-level thinking. Most would agree that social media doesn’t reach everyone. It doesn’t reach a lot of consumers. Therefore, we can’t abandon the fundamentals. (1) Identify your target audience, (2) develop your strategy and messaging and (3) start pulling tools from the tool belt that make the most sense. We can’t help but strategize in light of these new tools – but we can’t strategize around them.

So, is it that simple? Absolutely not. Things just got a lot more complicated.

I’m Not Ready for the Big Idea to Die

Just Do It. That was a Big Idea. It was simple and it stuck. I won’t begin to digest why this idea became a game-changer for one of the most recognizable brands in recent memory. But the question has recently surfaced, does the Big Idea still have impact as it did 20 years ago?

Picture this: Just Do It is written on an ad agency whiteboard in 2009—where’s the next place we go? Okay, nice tag line – where’s our Facebook and Twitter strategy? My guess is that most of us would immediately begin to reach for the media tool belt that has grown exponentially since the days this Big Idea changed the ad world. We divide the Big Idea into a series of little ideas. That may be the right move for the ad world we now live in. Mad Men’s big concept, big pitch, big win may be nothing more than a glorified memory in our business.

I’ve enjoyed reading and digesting the thoughts of brilliant minds in our industry on the subject. Mitch Joel and Edward Boches are two that sparked my thinking this past week. I can’t compete with the experience and wisdom these guys have to offer, and their arguments are certainly sound.

However, I’m not ready for the Big Idea to die.

I’ve spent the last few days in the Colorado Rocky Mountains (and haven’t consumed a single Coors Light). This is my favorite place on earth, as mentioned in my bio. I grew up, and still live, in Texas, but the mountains of Colorado are always in my dreams and serve as a constant source of inspiration for me. WARNING: I’m about to get a little vulnerable and expose some of my quirks – no judging, you have quirks of your own. Below are a few more things that I wish were a part of my everyday life. If you were to ask me, what inspires you?, when are you the most relaxed?, what do you look forward to?, my list would look something like this:

I love the mountains.

I love cold weather – really cold weather that depresses most people.

I love coffee shops with the A/C turned way up so I can at least pretend it’s cold outside (I’m sitting in one right now)

I love snow dogs – Alaskan Malamutes are the winners

I love coffee – not just the caffeine or the taste…I pour my coffee into an insulated tumbler each morning so it lasts upwards of two hours. It’s relaxing for me.

I love fireplaces

I love cold weather clothes – even though I have about 4 weeks of Texas “winter”, my closet is filled with jackets and sweaters as though I’m anxiously waiting for global cooling

I’m not making this up. I individually love all of these little things and look forward to any exposure I get to them. I’m in the mountains, in a coffee shop, drinking coffee, but it’s 90 degrees outside—I’ll take the compromise. I get a little excited every time I see an Alaskan Malamute or Husky up here. I wouldn’t even think about buying a house without a fireplace.

Notice that there is no hint of white beaches, blue water or piña colada’s on this list. Is it pure coincidence that I love all of these individual things that seem so related, or is there more to it? I would argue that I fell in love with a single culture, not a random list. The list I detailed above probably describes the life of more than one of the locals sitting around me in this ski town coffee shop. It’s not unrealistic or idealistic. It’s a culture that I wish I could be a part of. Since I’m not, I grapple for any of the individual items on that list and consider it a win.

I can’t let go of the Big Idea. As marketers, I believe that we can throw snow dogs, coffee shops and cold weather in front of our audiences, and we’ll probably entice them a little bit. These little ideas can certainly be successful, but if we refuse to let go of the whole ski-town culture—the Big Idea—we can not only entice them but invite them into something much bigger. I’m not going to make a major commitment for a fireplace, but you better believe I’ll change my behavior if you manage to make me part of the entire culture.

Nike could roll out a series of little ideas to get me to buy a pair of running shoes. Just Do It, on the other hand, doesn’t just make me want to buy a pair of running shoes—it makes me want to become an athlete. Then I’ll buy running shoes, clothes and Nike+ for the rest of my life. Even in 2009.