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	<title>mode2design &#187; social media</title>
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	<link>http://www.mode2design.com</link>
	<description>- Notes on visual problem-solving</description>
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		<title>Will LinkedIn&#8217;s IPO legitimize &#8220;social media&#8221;?</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2011/05/17/will-linkedins-ipo-legitimize-social-media/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2011/05/17/will-linkedins-ipo-legitimize-social-media/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 May 2011 19:41:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Initial public offering]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LinkedIn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Stock Exchange]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mode2design.com/?p=436</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I am watching, as many others apparently are, to see how the LinkedIn IPO will fare this week. This is the first of the Social Media platform giants to hit the stock exchange, now to be offered on the NYSE, rather than on NASDAQ, as originally proposed. I&#8217;m not only interested in the value of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="post_image_link" href="http://www.mode2design.com/2011/05/17/will-linkedins-ipo-legitimize-social-media/" title="Permanent link to Will LinkedIn&#8217;s IPO legitimize &#8220;social media&#8221;?"><img class="post_image aligncenter frame" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/linkedIn-legitimizes-social-media1.png" width="560" height="383" alt="Will the LinkedIn IPO legitimize all of Social Media?" /></a>
</p><div class="zemanta-img">
<div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 300px">
	<a href="http://commons.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stockexchange.jpg"><img title="The floor of the New York Stock Exchange publi..." src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Stockexchange.jpg/300px-Stockexchange.jpg" alt="The floor of the New York Stock Exchange publi..." width="300" height="204" /></a>
	<p class="wp-caption-text">Image via Wikipedia</p>
</div>
</div>
<p>I am watching, as many others apparently are, to see how the <a href="http://www.linkedin.com" target="_blank">LinkedIn</a> <a class="zem_slink" title="Initial public offering" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering">IPO</a> will fare this week. This is the first of the Social Media platform giants to hit the stock exchange, now to be offered on the NYSE, rather than on NASDAQ, as originally proposed.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not only interested in the value of shares (<a href="http://mashable.com/2011/05/17/linkedin-ipo-valuation/" target="_blank">Mashable has been covering this intently</a>), but the whole question of whether social media will now have a new kind of legitimacy for the typical business leader, particularly over 35 or even 45 years old. This has happened at least twice before in the past 30 years: specifically, when Apple (back then &#8220;Apple Computer&#8221;) released their Apple II desktop computer with a spreadsheet application (<a class="zem_slink" title="VisiCalc" rel="homepage" href="http://www.danbricklin.com/visicalc.htm">Visicalc</a>), the desktop computer for business use was made legitimate by IBM&#8217;s PC (crushing the field with <a class="zem_slink" title="Lotus 1-2-3" rel="homepage" href="http://www.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/123/">Lotus 1-2-3</a> sitting on Microsoft&#8217;s plain-Jane operating system). The World Wide Web became legitimate for business first in the early 90&#8242;s with the Netscape browser, again to be superseded by Microsoft with Internet Explorer.</p>
<p>Colleagues and I joke about the &#8220;facebookification&#8221; of LinkedIn, or the Twitterizing of LinkedIn, but I would say there are two &#8216;killer apps&#8217; hidden in the bowels of the LinkedIn world:</p>
<ol>
<li>Job Listings/Resumes</li>
<li>Group discussions (with moderation)</li>
</ol>
<p>These are not new application—Monster.com was a leader for a long time in the job hunter&#8217;s world. Craig&#8217;s list, the de facto Web classifieds (at least for the US) has been around for a while. But the combination of the online resume right up front in the business/working ethos of LinkedIn makes it easier to manage than both of these older stalwarts.</p>
<p>However, I have really taken to the Groups and discussions, even though I am trying to give <a href="http://www.quora.com/" target="_blank">Quora</a> a fair shake. What&#8217;s the difference? In my case, ease of use. LinkedIn is just easier to follow the Groups, topics and discusssions I want to follow. It&#8217;s easier to make a connection when I want to connect privately with someone about something under discussion. I trust the moderation, and even with Quora&#8217;s voting system, I still find the jumble of questions and answers harder to sort through.</p>
<p>And let me be bluntly clear about the interface: it does the job adequately and quite directly. As my fellow UX friends will say, that&#8217;s smart and that&#8217;s good, because as Google has clearly taught us, fancy graphics and an intrusive interface that slows down GETTING IN AND GETTING OUT will not improve the user experience. And what does the average business user want?</p>
<p>They want something that&#8217;s tested and works. They want it easy to use and relatively painless. They want it to be unobtrusive. They want privacy a la carte. And they want something that&#8217;s proven to be profitable as a business, to insure that it will last—this already happened, as opposed to some of the other (major) social media entities.</p>
<p>Visually, the unprettified LinkedIn may be low on pictures, but it puts connectivity right up front and center, with personal/professional background info and group interactivity just a layer or two below. Not glamorous, but it does the job. And, unlike Facebook, there are no great controversies over privacy issues and the ownership of content.</p>
<p>So, Thursday, I&#8217;m watching the New York Stock Exchange to see how it goes&#8230;and I might have to disclose that I own shares in LinkedIn by Friday, if the path to legitimacy for social media roars open.</p>
<h6 id="436_related-articles_1" class="zemanta-related-title">Related articles</h6>
<ul class="zemanta-article-ul">
<li class="zemanta-article-ul-li"><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/17/linkedin-ups-price-of-ipo-to-42-to-45-per-share-valuation-now-over-4-billion/">LinkedIn Ups Price Of IPO To $42 To $45 Per Share, Valuation Now Over $4 Billion</a> (techcrunch.com)</li>
</ul>
<div class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=3a75d701-49b0-415f-abea-40eca82f643f" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a></div>
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<li><a href='http://www.mode2design.com/2011/03/10/4-lessons-learned-from-transmedia-spammers/'>4 Lessons Learned from Transmedia Spammers</a></li>
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]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>5 Tips to Social Media Service with a(n emoticon) Smile</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2011/05/05/5-tips-to-social-media-service-with-an-emoticon-smile/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2011/05/05/5-tips-to-social-media-service-with-an-emoticon-smile/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 05 May 2011 19:37:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transmedia Storytelling]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mode2design.com/?p=413</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If success in Social Media is to be understood as ubiquitous, simple and easy, here&#8217;s an example of a great use of a commonly available tool that can work for business requiring no special app or interface design. In a recent trip to Mexico City I was advised to not hire a taxi by walking [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="post_image_link" href="http://www.mode2design.com/2011/05/05/5-tips-to-social-media-service-with-an-emoticon-smile/" title="Permanent link to 5 Tips to Social Media Service with a(n emoticon) Smile"><img class="post_image aligncenter frame" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/5551013770_5d284b918f.jpg" width="299" height="500" alt="SMS conversation - Social Media works for business best when it's simple!" /></a>
</p><p>If success in Social Media is to be understood as ubiquitous, simple and easy, here&#8217;s an example of a great use of a commonly available tool that can work for business requiring no special app or interface design.</p>
<p>In a recent trip to Mexico City I was advised to not hire a taxi by walking out into the street and just raising my hand to flag one down, as I would in New York City. There was signage at the hotel warning visitors to only get cabs from their taxi stand, as well as local business people who gave me warning beforehand, so I was prepared to either make a phone call to get a recommended car service or wait patiently at the hotel&#8217;s manned curbside entrance.</p>
<p>On day 1 of the my trip in order to get from the hotel to the conference site, I dutifully went out to the hotel&#8217;s cab stand. A cab pulled up, operated by a driver who spoke adequate English, enough for my traveling partners&#8217; comfort. He drove us as efficiently as possible through the tangled traffic (including using side streets to get past massive major roadway reconstruction that reminded me of Boston&#8217;s &#8220;BIG DIG&#8221; project), and handed us his business card as he dropped us off at our destination. &#8220;Call me anytime, day or night, if you need a taxi,&#8221; he said. Great! We had safe transportation, at a reasonable price.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, I called him to get a ride back to the hotel. He asked if I would mind if his son would come to pick us up. I thought, &#8220;why not?&#8221;, and a young man, probably in his mid-20&#8242;s, driving a different car (with the company logo discretely painted in the front window) arrived 20 minutes later.</p>
<p>In the course of the trip back (again through all of the short cuts that an experienced driver would take to avoid construction and traffic), I discover that this son was part of a family-owned fleet of six taxis, a combination of brothers and cousins and their sons all pooling their vehicles and sharing fares. At the end of this trip, Mauricio then gave us his business card, branded with the fleet&#8217;s logo and giving his name and his cell phone number (<em>see below—but read the tips first!</em>).</p>
<p>My business partners and I then called him regularly over the next two days for our travel, but the most interesting element of my experience with this cab driver and his use of mobile technology occurred on the last night of our stay, where we all had early flights back to New York.</p>
<p>Mine was the first, where I asked to be picked up at 2AM. &#8220;No problem,&#8221; says Mauricio, the taxi driver.</p>
<p><em>Here comes the social media surprise:</em></p>
<p>At 2:05 AM, I am patiently waiting at the cab stand driveway. No sign of Mauricio&#8217;s small grey car. At 2:14 AM, my phone rings. It&#8217;s Mauricio texting me, reporting that he is waiting for me—however, he&#8217;s on the opposite side of the building, at the rear entrance of the hotel.</p>
<p>Not a problem: a few more short text messages, and he has pulled around the building. Off we go.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m amazed&#8230;I can&#8217;t imagine having the same experience with a New York cabbie. Perhaps I could with one of the &#8220;gypsy&#8221; cabs (the private fleets that tend to service the areas of New York City that our expensively-licensed yellow cabs don&#8217;t want to drive through), but this fellows nonchalant use of texting to conduct business offered an important view of where customer service needs to be: EVERYWHERE. All he needed was my phone number.</p>
<p>Social Media doesn&#8217;t have to be hard. It just has to be organic in the way you communicate with customers.</p>
<p><strong>The 5 tips:</strong></p>
<ol>
<li><strong>Keep it simple. </strong></li>
<li><strong>Make it easy to be accessible.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Boil it down to getting the message across (both ways). </strong></li>
<li><strong>When it&#8217;s over, don&#8217;t linger (customers have other things to do).</strong></li>
<li><strong>Satisfied customers come back when they are ready—and they tell their friends.</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>With that last point in mind, if you&#8217;re in Mexico City and you need a reliable cab driver, call Mauricio Escobedo:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mauricio_card.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-423" title="mauricio_card" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/mauricio_card.jpg" alt="" width="489" height="273" /></a></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;<br />
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<li><a href='http://www.mode2design.com/2011/03/10/4-lessons-learned-from-transmedia-spammers/'>4 Lessons Learned from Transmedia Spammers</a></li>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>4 Lessons Learned from Transmedia Spammers</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2011/03/10/4-lessons-learned-from-transmedia-spammers/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2011/03/10/4-lessons-learned-from-transmedia-spammers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:56:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transmedia Storytelling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Audience]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[customer relationships]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LinkedIn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mode2design.com/?p=395</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Transmedia has gone beyond simply infiltrating the social media channels: last year I participated in a transmedia storytelling property called &#8220;Crushing it! A Social Media Love Story&#8221; which used Twitter, YouTube and a collection of blogs to create a story and engage an audience over the course of one week. Getting audience participation in creating [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="post_image_link" href="http://www.mode2design.com/2011/03/10/4-lessons-learned-from-transmedia-spammers/" title="Permanent link to 4 Lessons Learned from Transmedia Spammers"><img class="post_image aligncenter frame" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/who_are_you.jpg" width="600" height="400" alt="Who are you? Spammers fail at real interaction and engagement in transmedia." /></a>
</p><p>Transmedia has gone beyond simply infiltrating the social media channels: last year I participated in a <a class="zem_slink freebase/en/transmedia_storytelling" title="Transmedia storytelling" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmedia_storytelling">transmedia storytelling</a> property called <a href="http://www.crushingitstory.com/drupal6/" target="_blank">&#8220;Crushing it! A Social Media Love Story&#8221;</a> which used Twitter, YouTube and a collection of blogs to create a story and engage an audience over the course of one week. Getting audience participation in creating the flow and defining the outcome of the story was an important element in the activity. I would say that if we had a pre-constructed plot line or a fixed, predetermined ending it really wouldn&#8217;t be correct to call it &#8220;transmedia&#8221;. Adaptation, surprise and collaborative genesis to both characters and story threads are now considered integral to a transmedia property. The key to success was how the writing team worked on the project: they &#8220;performed&#8221; as actors, primarily in real time via Twitter, writing in the voice of their characters. They could respond naturally and convincingly when interacting with people on-line, and then follow up with scripted material played in front of the camera on YouTube which reflected conversation that occurred earlier in the day. What happens when an automated content generator, which we usually call a bot or spammer, is unleashed to engage us via Twitter or Facebook?</p>
<p>In the past month I have noticed a sudden wave of new spammers, bots and other blatantly unrealistic Twitterers following me. For example, take a look at the profile of someone who tried to follow me in the past few weeks (This account has already been closed by Twitter, by the way).</p>
<div id="attachment_397" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 300px">
	<a href="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Picture-89.png"><img class="size-medium wp-image-397" title="Picture 89" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Picture-89-300x282.png" alt="A spammer account on Twitter" width="300" height="282" /></a>
	<p class="wp-caption-text">Screen shot of a spammer&#39;s Twitter account</p>
</div>
<p>What are the giveaway signs? The name and the &#8220;glam shot&#8221; profile picture are a good place to start—sort of like those photos that go into picture frames that are sold in a store, but you wouldn&#8217;t put them up in your home because they aren&#8217;t really you. The bio is also rather suspicious.</p>
<p>The tweets are a collection of gibberish or odd listing of websites. In this case, the creation of a fake account is pretty easy to spot. But what about a more carefully planned creation of a false identity, or persona?</p>
<p><a href="http://www.socialtimes.com/2011/02/news-alert-air-force-issues-order-for-fake-people-on-social-media-sites/" target="_blank">Social Times reported last month that the U.S. Air Force was looking for the development of  <em>&#8216;“Persona Management Software,” software that manages online “personas,”  allowing a single human to assume the identities of as many fake people  as they’d like.&#8217;</em></a></p>
<p>A month later, as I check back on the article (which has not been pulled offline), I notice it has received eight comments. I have no idea how many views the article has had, but I would have thought it would have gained more attention. In the meantime, I assume that the best &#8220;fake&#8221; personas would be created and maintained by creative individuals working in real time, building their characters and weaving their stories as they do in <a href="http://www.argn.com/" target="_blank">ARG&#8217;s</a>, World of Warcraft, Second Life and other places where the completely fabricated persona is the norm, but created through the regular interaction of a real person. Persona Management Software will have to be written to appear to care about the people it is engaging with in conversation, and will have to display concern, interest, and the ability to draw from both knowledge and experience to seem real.</p>
<p>There are at least 4 valuable lessons to learn from these automated content generators that apply to social media, transmedia, and storytelling as it applies to brand management or customer relationship management:</p>
<ul>
<li>Interaction in text-based social media is perceived as &#8220;real&#8221; when the content seems conversational, with a natural give-and-take. One-way or scripted messaging isn&#8217;t satisfying. Although you should answer questions or acknowledge requests for contact, social media is asynchronous communication and you can afford to take time to make your words relate and make sense.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Personality, much like the defining qualities of a brand, is perceived through  expositional content or information over time — one tweet, one tag line, or a 2-line bio on a twitter page is, a best, an ice-breaker. The collected information others receive from us gives the audience a larger picture, and establishes credibility. Bots, spam engines and some over-eager marketers never exhibit patience — they routinely &#8220;overshare&#8221;, and often don&#8217;t create a satisfactory &#8220;back story&#8221; about who is the person behind the message.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Asking questions does draw people in, but a response that reflects comprehension keeps people <em>engaged</em>.  Automated voice response systems have become much better at this, but when it gets too complex they are still triggered to bring in the live person to get full satisfaction. Spammers lose our attention if they cannot answer questions—that&#8217;s why they pepper their text-based messages with phone numbers to reach a live respondent to attempt to sell us a story.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Offering to help before knowing what the message recipient wants or needs is a dead giveaway that you&#8217;re probably not real—or rude, at the very least. Telephone solicitation scripts in recent years have moved to the &#8220;may I ask you to participate in a survey&#8221; model to find out if the subject fits the sales target before making the offer. By signing on for social media interaction through Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn we may have given away a large chunk of our privacy, but it doesn&#8217;t mean we will accept intrusive behavior. Asking someone to visit a link in an introductory message is often considered suspicious.</li>
</ul>
<p>This might seem like common sense more than secrets to social media or transmedia success, but how to handle consumer interaction is a thorny question for customer relation professionals  and marketers who are looking at the growing use of Facebook and Twitter by consumers and potential consumers. Even the casual social media user  is not a passive audience member; he/she is substituting Facebook messages, tweets, blog comments and YouTube posts in place of or in addition to phone calls and emails, and the conversation is often both revealing and quite public. Automation, despite <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/15/jeopardy-computer-crushes_n_823782.html" target="_blank">winning at &#8216;Jeopardy!&#8217;</a>, isn&#8217;t ready to take the place of human interaction. At least, not until spammers really learn how to program the algorithm(s) of natural conversation in satisfying sync with real life.</p>
<p>Spammers and unaware business enterprises attempting to utilize social media appear to be as artificial as the actors in silent movies overtly gesturing and posturing to convey their message. It takes hands-on participation and conscious interaction to make social media or transmedia to work—even if it&#8217;s use is to fulfill a role.</p>
<div class="zemanta-pixie"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" title="Enhanced by Zemanta" href="http://www.zemanta.com/"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_e.png?x-id=3152c875-c798-4d82-b9ad-895aea6eadad" alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" /></a></div>
<div class="zemanta-pixie"><em>UPDATE: Within minute of posting a link to this article via Twitter, I gained a handful of new followers&#8230;unfortunately, all spambots. The irony is quite wonderful (see the screenshot below):</em></div>
<div class="zemanta-pixie"><em></p>
<div id="attachment_411" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 305px">
	<em><a href="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Picture-1.png"><img class="size-full wp-image-411" title="Spambots" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Picture-1.png" alt="Spambots - transmedia phony personas on Twitter" width="305" height="279" /></a></em>
	<p class="wp-caption-text">Twitter Spambots - Austin Powers would have them as a new nemesis&#39; minions.</p>
</div>
<p></em></div>
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		<item>
		<title>It&#8217;s like radio, only louder</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2010/02/03/its-like-radio-only-louder/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2010/02/03/its-like-radio-only-louder/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:28:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transmedia Storytelling]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mode2design.com/?p=252</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[When I was a kid, and into my early adulthood, there were still many great storytellers on radio in the US. Jean Shepherd, most famous for his &#8220;A Christmas Story&#8221;, was on the air every night with his stories when I was a teenager. Paul Harvey would tell us &#8220;The Rest of The Story&#8221; which I [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="post_image_link" href="http://www.mode2design.com/2010/02/03/its-like-radio-only-louder/" title="Permanent link to It&#8217;s like radio, only louder"><img class="post_image aligncenter frame" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/crushing-it-coming-soon1.png" width="600" height="323" alt="Crushing It! A Social Media Love Story" /></a>
</p><p>When I was a kid, and into my early adulthood, there were still many great storytellers on radio in the US. Jean Shepherd, most famous for his &#8220;A Christmas Story&#8221;, was on the air every night with his stories when I was a teenager. Paul Harvey would tell us &#8220;The Rest of The Story&#8221; which I would listen to midday, usually  in my car while on the road as a sales representative for that computer company named after a fruit. I thought these guys were amazing craftsmen, keeping me riveted and my mind whirling as they&#8217;d get to that final finish. What satisfaction, to be immersed in this story for 10 or 15 minutes, forgetting about my homework or, as an adult, sitting in horrible traffic jams.</p>
<p>As much credit I give these storytellers for using their creative imagination and their voices to spin great tales, I realize that the stories were created in partnership: as a listener, it was up to me to create the visuals in my mind, to fill in the gaps where the storyteller would jump over details, or to decide who was a hero and who was a villain. Listening to those storytellers over the radio was an active process, and now I&#8217;m engaged in even more active storytelling by following a stream of tweets about a handful of characters wrapped up in a story about getting married, breaking up, having a baby, falling in love.</p>
<p>Toronto-based screen-writer/author <a href="http://www.jillgolick.com/" target="_blank">Jill Golick</a> decided to use the tools of the Social Web to tell the story &#8220;Crushing It! A Social Media Love Story&#8221;. It&#8217;s a comic soap opera, that takes place over the course of five days, specifically during <a href="http://socialmediaweek.org/" target="_blank">Social Media Week</a>,  with a cast of characters that would most believably use Twitter, Facebook, blogging and YouTube in their everyday life. She hasn&#8217;t made the story strictly about social media either: the focus is on a couple about to get married, and there are no Social Media Gurus directly involved (although the title is a tribute to Gary Vaynerchuk, an early adopter of marketing his wine store through the Internet via his Wine Library webcast, and has since become an author of the book <em>Crush It!</em>, to inspire others). There is the best friend of the groom, co-workers, an extremely-pregnant best friend of the bride, a mom trying to figure Twitter out to keep up with her son&#8230;and intrigue! A &#8220;secret&#8221; twitter account, a spilt cup of coffee that leads to romance&#8230;and you, the audience, following on Twitter using the hashtag #cistory, gets to decide the ending.</p>
<p>The core story line is a work in progress, influenced by audience participation. It&#8217;s told in short bursts over the course of the day on Twitter, with additional entries to blogs and YouTube that fill out the background, enriching the experience. This is truly what transmedia is about, where many forms of media are used to tell this story, and real people interact directly with the story, affecting characters and outcome. Even Gary Vaynerchuk has started to follow some of the characters—who knows if he&#8217;ll offer some advice or get into the action?</p>
<p>What I find most interesting about the process is how the audience will mold and move the story. Much as Scott McCloud would say concerning cartoon/comic or sequential art stories, it&#8217;s about what happens <em>between</em> the panels that moves the story along.</p>
<p>I invite you to watch via twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/crushingitstory/lists/crushing-it-story" target="_blank">http://www.twitter.com/crushingitstory/lists/crushing-it-story</a> or following the hashtag #cistory. You can go on the website <a href="http://crushingitstory.com">http://www.crushingitstory.com</a> for more background on the story, the characters and credits as well.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the first video from the character Barbara Marks&#8217; YouTube account, talking about how she&#8217;s about to get married (or so she thinks):</p>
<p><iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/qZAhj7Qo15M" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen="true"> </iframe></p>
<p>The story will take place from Monday, February 1, 2010 through Friday, February 5, 2010. Keep me posted on what you think by adding your comments here or on the website.</p>
<p>In the spirit of giving full disclosure about my involvement (and enthusiasm) with this story, I created the web site and am functioning as the administrator of the site. Although I&#8217;m not writing a character directly, I do play a part in providing the framework for the action to play out, and I&#8217;d like to hear what you think about the whole experience.<br />
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		<item>
		<title>If I can speak corporate, will you love me?</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2010/01/12/if-i-can-speak-corporate-will-you-love-me/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2010/01/12/if-i-can-speak-corporate-will-you-love-me/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:42:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Presentation Skills]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transmedia Storytelling]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mode2design.com/?p=243</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Recently, I sat mesmerized while listening to an executive&#8217;s explanation of how he prepares to give a quarterly report to his board of directors. After listing the facts and figures that the board &#8220;most definitely wants to hear&#8221;, he finished by glancing around the room nervously and becoming silent. Eight other smart executives were there [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="post_image_link" href="http://www.mode2design.com/2010/01/12/if-i-can-speak-corporate-will-you-love-me/" title="Permanent link to If I can speak corporate, will you love me?"><img class="post_image alignnone frame" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/EmptySuit.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Post image for If I can speak corporate, will you love me?" /></a>
</p><p>Recently, I sat mesmerized while listening to an executive&#8217;s explanation of how he prepares to give a quarterly report to his board of directors. After listing the facts and figures that the board &#8220;most definitely wants to hear&#8221;, he finished by glancing around the room nervously and becoming silent. Eight other smart executives were there as well, looking at him, or through him: it was hard for me to tell. I don&#8217;t however, think they were as fascinated. Now, I have to tell you, I was not interested in the actual list of numbers he droned through. I was taken by how this intelligent, interesting guy, who had a lot to say about sports, family, and the current economy&#8217;s effect on business while chatting informally with his colleagues just 1o minutes before, had turned into a soft-spoken and perhaps inconsequential bore. No passion, no information analysis, and no indication of just how smart he is and why he&#8217;s good at his job. And I wondered; why I would ever want to friend him on Facebook, or connect with him on LinkedIn, or, worst of all, follow his tweets on Twitter? Who would this fellow be if he is representing his company in the social media environment?</p>
<p>As smart and engaging as he is personally, once he stood up to talk as a corporate executive (and, I would assume, if he had to speak to others as a &#8220;businessperson&#8221;), he lapsed into a dialect of thick corporate speak; a concoction of numbers, catch phrases and acronyms. In the 5 minutes he spoke, he never told us what course of action to take based on the numbers he disclosed nor did he reveal the consequences of what might happen if nothing changed. Sadder still, I doubt the board would have gained anything from his report, even though they really want to know what matters and what he would recommend.</p>
<p>So, with everyone rushing to get companies on the bandwagon of Social Media, I am concerned that there can be a wall that keeps content of value safely locked behind boring, undigested informational blather. The idea of  &#8220;safety in numbers&#8221; has an ironic twist in meaning when executives and professionals do not offer insight or comprehension to the conversation, hiding behind the less-risky method of offering volumes of content with little depth. Data gathering is not enough, it needs to be pressed into service and given meaning.</p>
<p>So, please do not ask a C-level executive or, for that matter, anyone in the company, to jump into social media if that person isn&#8217;t willing or able to have a forthright conversation. If the person communicating from the company&#8217;s desk cannot speak clearly, with depth and presence, and project some real saavy about what&#8217;s going on, that conversation will end more quickly than someone can leave the room if they were there in person. Actually, we&#8217;re normally far too polite to just walk out of a room when we&#8217;re bored, but the online world is a cruel place, and being &#8220;unfollowed&#8221; is just a click away.</p>
<p>I&#8217;m not asking for flip personal conversation or chatty filler to seem &#8220;human&#8221; or that even more abused buzzword, &#8220;authentic&#8221;. Corporate communication cannot afford to be jargon-filled and rote or superficial; it must be active and authorities should speak, authoritatively and with purpose when speaking from a corporate setting.</p>
<p>Otherwise, whether it&#8217;s 140 characters or 140 pages, there is no reason for anyone to listen, much less be mesmerized, engaged, or even interested.</p>
<p>If you have the dreaded job of delivering reports on some kind of regular basis, I&#8217;d suggest first spending the time to create conclusions that make numbers, facts and calculations have relevance and meaning. Then, whether you share them in face-to-face meetings or use a blog or any other kind of media  to present them, you&#8217;ll have engaged listeners.</p>
<p>Whether it&#8217;s &#8220;We have a problem, Houston&#8221; or &#8220;We&#8217;re good to go&#8221;, putting thoughtful perspective on even the most routine information-sharing will be the strongest way to create respect and engagement.<br />
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		<item>
		<title>London Calling</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2009/11/10/london-calling/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2009/11/10/london-calling/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:27:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.mode2design.com/?p=174</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Next Tuesday, I will be speaking at Jeff Pulver&#8216;s #140 Conf: The State of Now , in London. Dean Landsman (@deanland on Twitter) and I will talk about &#8220;Digital Presence: Now and Beyond&#8221;, and we&#8217;re planning on presenting using a combination of  pre-made visuals while I will sketch notes over them, on screen, as we [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="post_image_link" href="http://www.mode2design.com/2009/11/10/london-calling/" title="Permanent link to London Calling"><img class="post_image alignnone" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/bigben1.jpg" width="500" height="333" alt="Big Ben, London-photo by Dean Meyers" /></a>
</p><p><img class="size-full wp-image-176    alignright" title="KensingtonStation" src="http://www.mode2design.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/KensingtonStation.jpg" alt="London Calling: Kensington Station" width="256" height="173" /></p>
<p>Next Tuesday, I will be speaking at <a title="Jeff Pulver" rel="homepage" href="http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/009062.html " target="_self">Jeff Pulver</a>&#8216;s <a href="http://london.140conf.com/" target="_blank">#140 Conf: The State of Now</a> , in London. Dean Landsman (<a href="http://www.twitter.com/deanland" target="_blank">@deanland</a> on Twitter) and I will talk about &#8220;Digital Presence: Now and Beyond&#8221;, and we&#8217;re planning on presenting using a combination of  pre-made visuals while I will sketch notes over them, on screen, as we talk. How does this hybrid concept work? And why would I do something so risky as expose myself by drawing live as we speak, while people tweet about the conference in real time and I might also be potentially on camera?</p>
<p>My answer is that this way of presenting is truly &#8220;The State of Now&#8221; &#8211; just as much as typing in <a href="https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=wave&amp;passive=true&amp;nui=1&amp;continue=https%3A%2F%2Fwave.google.com%2Fwave%2F&amp;followup=https%3A%2F%2Fwave.google.com%2Fwave%2F&amp;ltmpl=standard" target="_blank">Google&#8217;s Wave</a>, where you can currently see each key stroke and erasure, or watch a webinar with someone fumbling through notes, or speaking live; it is the antidote to the perfectly buttoned-up and mistake-free studio version; it is the energy of a live concert where you don&#8217;t know how the singer will sound, it is the excitement of the promise of reality TV (although currently it has become a situationally scripted affair to ensure a story line with an arc). It&#8217;s inherent in the rhythm of 140 characters, where the story unfolds in short and often candid bursts.</p>
<p>So, I will draw, sketch, and doodle in plain sight as Dean L.  and I speak. I may erase lines or even start over; there will be very few if any perfectly straight lines, or circles that close exactly where they started; that is the state of now.</p>
<p>I do expect interest, I hope for excitement, and even more than that, I hope that exposing the stream of visualization that emerges will offer a better definition of who I am and how I think. The efficiency of a powerful image cannot be beat, and the<em> process</em> of watching my thinking unfold has no parallel. Tying this to the twitter stream, adding these images to my flickr library, or streaming the video of the presentation will strengthen my unique digital presence.</p>
<p>A digital presence, now and beyond, whether for a brand, an organization, or an individual, will and should have a strong visual anchor, and I don&#8217;t mean a logo or just one symbol. A digital presence can be associated with a visual style, such as the Matrix movies&#8217; association with the slow motion action scene; <a class="zem_slink" title="Dave Gray" rel="homepage" href="http://communicationnation.blogspot.com/">Dave Gray</a>&#8216;s company, <a href="http://www.xplane.com/" target="_blank">Xplane</a>, associated with information graphics that explain processes and methods through visual storytelling; or President Obama&#8217;s visual presence,where he is commonly viewed as looking up and forward, off  towards some greater goal, or smiling through adversity. We see this image projected routinely on television or, more to his digital presence, in his weekly YouTube broadcasts. A visual digital presence is a multi-layered thing, because we see, think and remember in images and words that combine sequentially to tell stories.</p>
<p>Avatars, photographs,  color choices, diagrams,  symbols, typographic choices, drawings, or video displayed on your blog, your facebook page, your twitter background, your YouTube and Flickr accounts ; there are so many ways to create a strong, memorable digital presence. If you remember the dream of the picture phone made popular in the sixties, that era is here.</p>
<p>Returning to why talk about visual concepts at a Twitter conference; if you have used <a class="zem_slink" title="TwitPic" rel="homepage" href="http://twitpic.com">TwitPic</a> even once you have used Twitter to add a visual component to your digital presence. No airbrushing necessary. More to the point, why did you pick whatever you have chosen to represent you as your avatar? Do you get the reaction you expect when people talk to you about how you look on twitter? Your digital presence will be discerned by others not just through your words but the visual way you present yourself as well.</p>
<p>So, as the Clash said back in 1979,</p>
<p><strong>London calling at the top of the dial<br />
After all this, won&#8217;t you give me a smile?</strong><br />
<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MqO1b-5RsAs" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen="true"> </iframe></p>
<p><span style="font-size:9px;">(Photos in article by Dean Meyers)</span></p>
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		<title>Curiosity is the glue to a good story</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2009/02/09/curiosity-is-the-glue-to-a-good-story/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2009/02/09/curiosity-is-the-glue-to-a-good-story/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 09 Feb 2009 00:27:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Presentation Skills]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Transmedia Storytelling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presentation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Visual Expression]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mode2design.wordpress.com/?p=64</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;What&#8217;s coming next?&#8221; That&#8217;s the question you want every listener and every viewer to ask. You want edge-of-the-seat, gripping-the-chair attention. You want silence in the room as every eye is on you. If you&#8217;re using a whiteboard to make a presentation, you want everyone to get excited as you go to the board to draw [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><h3><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-99" title="istock_000004387778xsmall" src="http://mode2design.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/istock_000004387778xsmall.jpg?w=300" border="4" alt="istock_000004387778xsmall" width="300" height="225" />&#8220;What&#8217;s coming next?&#8221;</h3>
<p>That&#8217;s the question you want every listener and every viewer to ask. You want edge-of-the-seat, gripping-the-chair attention. You want silence in the room as every eye is on you. If you&#8217;re using a whiteboard to make a presentation, you want everyone to get excited as you go to the board to draw the next chart, write the next big keyword, flip the page to make a point.</p>
<p>Beyond interest lies curiosity. That&#8217;s what drove humans to find better ways to hunt, explore new lands,  create art.</p>
<p>Examining your presentation, your graphic design, your next blog post, what evokes curiosity? Here are some tips:</p>
<p>1) Build the story. Give a setup: &#8220;here&#8217;s the situation, the problem&#8221;.</p>
<p>2) Describe the outcome that is hoped for.</p>
<p>3) Describe how you propose to make that happen.</p>
<p>Simple, right? So why do so many presentation go down the rabbit hole of too much detail and no end in sight? Good stories are about action. Create energy with action&#8230;what are the actions that will make your outcome happen?</p>
<p>Visual tips: cut down the bullet points and write action words. Use a picture instead of a word if you can find one.</p>
<p>And, perhaps my favorite suggestion, when you&#8217;re giving a talk or presenting with slides:</p>
<p>Take a breath and pause after you&#8217;ve hit a key point. Give it time to sink in. Create suspense by not rushing from slide to slide, from point to point, spewing out facts or running down a list.</p>
<p>Control the pace of your story, and you&#8217;ll create a lot of interest not only in the story you&#8217;re telling but in you, the storyteller.<span id="more-64"></span><br />
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>An irresistible urge to communicate</title>
		<link>http://www.mode2design.com/2008/12/01/an-irresistible-urge-to-communicate/</link>
		<comments>http://www.mode2design.com/2008/12/01/an-irresistible-urge-to-communicate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:28:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>deanmeistr</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[social media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Visual Expression]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mode2design.wordpress.com/?p=26</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is a visual perfect storm: the convergence of strong graphic design, a message that evoked an emotional reaction and a simple interface (mounting the poster on the side of a wall at common eye level and within easy physical reach) which created an irresistible call to action. It&#8217;s not my design or my concept, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p><div id="attachment_27" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 225px">
	<a href="http://mode2design.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/img_0058.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-27" title="img_0058" src="http://mode2design.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/img_0058.jpg?w=225" alt="A poster found on a newsstand wall in NYC" width="225" height="300" /></a>
	<p class="wp-caption-text">A poster found on a newsstand wall in NYC</p>
</div>
<p>Here is a visual perfect storm: the convergence of strong graphic design, a message that evoked an emotional reaction and a simple interface (mounting the poster on the side of a wall at common eye level and within easy physical reach) which created an irresistible call to action. It&#8217;s not my design or my concept, but it inspires me to ask myself: Is my design about me or about my message? Have I created emotional impact, the kind that  stirs a response, triggers and/or plants a memory, satisfies the need to be touched somehow? Do I provide a place for feedback or a call to action? These questions are based on old principles, but when it works, it really works.</p>
<p>Ultimately, inviting participation or dialog is where Web 2.0-Web 3.0 (the read/write web, or collaborative, social media-focussed web), will make the old advertising model feel distant or quaint.</p>
<p>More images: <a href="http://gumelection.wordpress.com/">http://gumelection.wordpress.com/</a><br />
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